midnight
`` She is better as she is , and God be thanked that he raised up such a protector for her childhood . You have been all in all to her in her infancy , and she will strive to repay it to your age . '' Of this Mrs. Dutton felt too confident to need assurances ; and receiving the dying man 's blessing , she knelt at his bed-side , prayed fervently for a few minutes , and withdrew . After this , nothing out of the ordinary track occurred until past midnight , and Magrath , more than once , whispered his joyful anticipations that the rear-admiral would survive until morning . An hour before day , however , the wounded man revived , in a way that the surgeon distrusted . He knew that no physical change of this sort could well happen that did not arise from the momentary ascendency of mind over matter , as the spirit is on the point of finally abandoning its earthly tenement ; a circumstance of no unusual occurrence in patients of strong and active intellectual properties , whose faculties often brighten for an instant , in their last moments , as the lamp flashes and glares as it is about to become extinct . Going to the bed , he examined his patient attentively , and was satisfied that the final moment was near .