midnight
After lunch he went up there again to smoke . Then he would go out by himself , and he might or might not come in for dinner . All evening he shut himself up again and wrote . At midnight or after he would come to her , worn out , and sleep , lying like a dead man at her side . She was startled by the sound of the postman 's knock and the flapping fall of a letter in the letter-box . It was for Tanqueray , and she took it up to him and laid it beside him without a word . To speak would have been fatal .