midnight
Thresk asked himself in vain what was his share . He had done a cowardly thing years ago a few miles from this spot . He had never ceased to reproach himself for the cowardice . But that it had lived and worked like some secret malady until in the end it had made him an all-unconscious accomplice in that midnight tragedy , a sharer in its guilt , if guilt there were -- here again was news for him . But the knowledge which her first words had given to him , that all these years he had never got the truth of her , kept him humble now . He ceased to be judge . He became pupil and as pupil he answered her .