About midnight
Again she felt herself pursued by some overwhelming longing , some desperate necessity for herself , like the outstretching of helpless , unseen arms in the darkness , and the air seemed heavy with sighs of yearning . She fled to her bed with the words , `` I love you more than Christ who died for me ! '' ringing in her ears . About midnight the dance at Lockhart 's was at its height . Even the old men who had come to `` look on '' caught the spirit of revelry and stamped the floor with the vigor of old Silenus . Eric took the violin from the Frenchmen , and Minna Oleson sat at the organ , and the music grew more and more characteristic -- rude , half mournful music , made up of the folksongs of the North , that the villagers sing through the long night in hamlets by the sea , when they are thinking of the sun , and the spring , and the fishermen so long away . To Margaret some of it sounded like Grieg 's _ Peer Gynt _ music .