midnight
And there in the starlight , under the wide-gnarled pines , sighing low with the wind , Helen sat with Dale on the old stone that an avalanche of a million years past had flung from the rampart above to serve as camp-table and bench for lovers in the wilderness ; the sweet scent of spruce mingled with the fragrance of wood-smoke blown in their faces . How white the stars , and calm and true ! How they blazed their single task ! A coyote yelped off on the south slope , dark now as midnight . A bit of weathered rock rolled and tapped from shelf to shelf . And the wind moaned . Helen felt all the sadness and mystery and nobility of this lonely fastness , and full on her heart rested the supreme consciousness that all would some day be well with the troubled world beyond .