midnight
`` Was Rebecca guilty or not ? '' the Vehmgericht of the servants ' hall had pronounced against her . And , I shame to say , she would not have got credit had they not believed her to be guilty . It was the sight of the Marquis of Steyne 's carriage-lamps at her door , contemplated by Raggles , burning in the blackness of midnight , `` that kep him up , '' as he afterwards said , that even more than Rebecca 's arts and coaxings . And so -- guiltless very likely -- she was writhing and pushing onward towards what they call `` a position in society , '' and the servants were pointing at her as lost and ruined . So you see Molly , the housemaid , of a morning , watching a spider in the doorpost lay his thread and laboriously crawl up it , until , tired of the sport , she raises her broom and sweeps away the thread and the artificer . A day or two before Christmas , Becky , her husband and her son made ready and went to pass the holidays at the seat of their ancestors at Queen 's Crawley .