nearly midnight
Then she got up , went to her desk , and wrote two letters . The first was addressed to `` The Board of Trustees of Saint Margaret 's Free Hospital for Children '' ; the second was addressed to `` Miss Margaret MacLean . '' They were both sealed and mailed that night . What befell the other trustees does not matter , either from the standpoint of Fancy or of what happened afterward ; moreover , it was nearly midnight , and what occurs after that on May Eve does not count . All through the evening Saint Margaret 's had been frankly miserable . Nurses gathered in groups in the nurses ' annex and talked about the closing of the incurable ward and the going of Margaret MacLean . The passing of the incurables mattered little to them , one way or another , but they knew what it mattered to the nurse in charge , and they were just beginning to realize what she had meant to them all .