midnight
It was a long journey , and although I travelled with all possible speed , I did not arrive until nearly forty-eight hours later . It was close on midnight then , and the first thing I heard , when I found myself alone in my room at the hotel , was the chime itself . Have you ever noticed -- or is it only my fancy ? -- that it seems to strike louder at midnight , and with greater intensity of expression , as we ourselves strike final chords ? It sounded so to me then , and suggested something -- I ca n't tell what , I ca n't define it ; but something that changed the current of my thoughts , and made me feel I had done right to come . And from that moment my grief was less self-centred , and the blessed power to feel for others began to return to me . Almost immediately after my arrival , I heard of the tragedy in the cathedral , the suicide of the tenor , and the trouble the dean and chapter were having to find a substitute ; and when I had seen the quiet shady Close , and the beautiful old cathedral , and my little house with its high-walled garden at the back , standing , as it were , on holy ground , I longed to take up my abode there , where no one would know my story but those to whom the secret would be sacred , and no one would intrude upon my grief .