midnight
He tilted the portrait into the candlelight , and compared it with this reflection in the glass of what had come out of Widderstone , feature with feature , with perfect composure and extreme care , Then he laid down the massive frame on the table , and gazed quietly at the tiny packet . It was to be a day of queer experiences . He had never before realized with how many miracles mere everyday life is besieged . Here in this small punctilious packet lay a Sesame -- a power of transformation beside which the transformation of that rather flaccid face of the noonday into this tense , sinister face of midnight was but as a moving from house to house -- a change just as irrevocable and complete , and yet so very normal . Which should it be , that , or -- his face lifted itself once more to the ice-like gloom of the looking-glass-that , or this ? It simply gazed back with a kind of quizzical pity on its lean features under the scrutiny of eyes so deep , so meaningful , so desolate , and yet so indomitably courageous . In the brain behind them a slow and stolid argument was in progress ; the one baffling reply on the one side to every appeal on the other being still simply .