midnight
An open book was propped against the back of the chair , and a low rocker , facing it , was swerved sharply aside . The evidence of daily occupation , suddenly interrupted , was all there -- a quiet content , overlaid by a dumb , creeping paralysis . The March wind blew fiercely through the night and the little house leaned yet more toward the sheltering hill . Afar , in the village , a train rumbled into the station ; the midnight train from the city by which the people of Rushton regulated their watches and clocks . Strangely enough , it stopped , and more than one good man , turning uneasily upon his pillow , wondered if the world might have come to its end . Half an hour afterward , a lone figure ascended the steep road which led to the house . A woman , fearless of the night , because Life had already done its worst to her , stumbled up the stony , overgrown way .