midnight
An insulated carbon point was directed to each white , still breast . From the old man 's hand a cord ran to a key beyond , arranged to make or break connection at a touch . By it stood a clock , with a simple mechanism attached that bore upon a second key like the first , evidently planned to press upon it when the hands should mark a given hour . The child had said that he would wake at one , and it was now past midnight . Ronald Wyde comprehended it all now . The wily old man 's feeble life had been withdrawn into the great magnet , and mixed therein with what remained of his own . In less than an hour the key would fall , and the double stream would flow into and animate his young body , which would then wake to renewed life ; while the cast-off shell beside it , worn to utter uselessness by a toilsome century , would be left to moulder as a mothed garment .