midnight
He cast himself down in his degradation at the feet of this woman whom he was resolved to help , and he said , `` Help me ! '' He came to this woman who was on the brink of self-destruction and he said , `` Teach me to live ! '' It was a strange way he took , but perhaps he was right -- perhaps it was the only way . The words he spoke at midnight on the lake were as nothing . His eyes , his acts in sunlight the next day , and day after day , were everything . He forced Viola to realise that she was indeed the only woman who could save him from the vice he had become the slave of , lift him up out of that pit in which he could not see the stars . At first she could not believe it , or could believe it only in moments of exaltation .