midnight
For an instant Hubert Varrick was startled ; but as he gazed he recognized the place . He must be at Fisher 's Landing . Up there through the trees , lay the home of Captain Carr , the uncle of little Jessie Bain . As he stood gazing at it , the clock in some adjacent steeple slowly struck the midnight hour . He wondered if Jessie was there . How he felt like telling some one his troubles ! Early the next morning Varrick was at the scene of the disaster , though he was scarcely fit to leave his bed at the village hostelry .