midnight
Mr. Chilton 's letters and presents should be returned to him at an early day , and thus should be finished the closing chapter of a volume which ought never to have been begun . All this done to his mind , he set the door of his room ajar , and watched for Mabel 's passage to hers . He had not to wait long . The young ladies had fallen into habits of early retiring of late -- a marked change from their olden fashion of singing and talking out the midnight hour . Himself unseen , Mr. Aylett scrutinized the two mounting the stairs side by side -- Rosa 's dark , mobile face , arch with smiles , while she chattered over a bit of country gossip she had heard that afternoon from a visitor , and the weary calm of Mabel 's visage , the drooping eyelids , and , when appealed to directly by her volatile comrade , the measured , not melancholy cadence of her answer , The girl had had a sore fight , and won a Pyrrhian victory . She was not vanquished , but she was worsted . Some men , upon appreciating what this meant , and how her grief had been wrought , would have had direful visitings of conscience , surrendered themselves to the mastery of doubts as to the righteousness and humanity of stringent action such as he had just consummated .