three in
the morning
Naturally with Marjorie this state of mind was worse , because of the brink of Jason 's confession for which she knew she was much to blame , and because of the closer past between them . Once only she saw him striding the fields , and though she pulled in her horse to watch him , Jason did not know ; and once he came to her when he did not know that she knew . It was the night before the mid-year examinations and Marjorie , in spite of that fact , had gone to a dance and , because of it , was spending the night in town with a friend . The two girls had got home a little before three in the morning , and Marjorie had put out her light and gone to bed but , being sleepless , had risen and sat dreaming before the fire . The extraordinary whiteness of the moonlight had drawn her to the window when she rose again , and she stood there like a tall lily , looking silent sympathy to the sufferers in the bitter cold outside . She put one bare arm on the sill of the closed window and looked down at the snow-crystals hardly less brilliant under the moon than they would be under the first sun-rays next morning , looked through the snow-laden branches of the trees , over the white house-tops , and out to the still white fields -- the white world within her answering the white world without as in a dream . She was thinking of Jason , as she had been thinking for days , for she could not get the boy out of her mind .