midnight
If you do , by the living Lord , I will murder you both ! '' He dashed out of the room like a man gone mad , leaving her standing petrified in the middle of the floor . One instant she stood , the room heaving , the walls rocking around her ; then , with a low , moaning cry , she tottered blindly forward and fell like a stone to the floor . The storm burst at midnight . A gale surged through the trees with a noise like thunder ; the rain fell in torrents . And while rain and wind beat tempestuously over the earth and the roaring sea , the husband paced up and down the library , with clinched teeth and locked hands and death-like face -- for the time utterly mad -- and the wife lay alone in her luxuriant room , deaf and blind to the tempest , in a deep swoon . The February day was closing in London in a thick , clammy , yellow fog .