eleven o'clock at night
The event must happen ; and it would be as well to make the best of it . They had not yet gone out of mourning for Sir Reginald ; and here was another death at hand to start them again with new suits of black . This was one of the advantages of service in a really good family , where the King of Terrors was treated with proper distinction . It was eleven o'clock at night , and the house was hushed in silence -- save in that suite of rooms where the invalid and his nurses were hardly ever at rest . One of the men servants slept in his clothes on a truckle bed in the corridor , ready for service in any emergency . Every one else had gone to bed , except Ida , who sat at her window , looking out at the wild windy sky and the forest trees swaying in the gale . The day had been rainy and tempestuous , and the wind was still raging -- just such a wind as Ida remembered upon Bessie 's birthday , the day of that terrible storm which had cost so many lives , and had made Reginald Palliser master of Wimperfield .