midnight
The thought was momentary , but carried to her heart , in that moment , the fullest conviction of her duty . She rushed hurriedly again into the passage -- and , though apprehending momentarily that her knees would sink from under her , took her way up the narrow flight of steps leading into the second story , and to the youth 's chamber . As she reached the door , a feminine scruple came over her . A young girl seeking the apartment of a man at midnight -- she shrunk back with a new feeling . But the dread necessity drove her on , and with cautious hand undoing the latch securing the door by thrusting her hand through an interstice between the logs -- wondering at the same time at the incautious manner in which , at such a period and place , the youth had provided for his sleeping hours -- she stood tremblingly within the chamber . Wrapped in unconscious slumbers , Ralph Colleton lay dreaming upon his rude couch of a thousand strange influences and associations . His roving fancies had gone to and fro , between his uncle and his bewitching cousin , until his heart grew softened and satisfied , not less with the native pleasures which they revived in his memory , than of the sweet oblivion which they brought of the many painful and perilous prospects with which he had more recently become familiar .