midnight
The more frivolous plunge forward like the drunken man who leaps from the open window believing space is water . The more intense draw back , startled at the unknown world before them . The woman who thinks love is all ideality is more liable to follow into undreamed-of chasms than she who , through the complexity of her own emotions , realises its grosser elements . It was long after midnight when Joy fell into a heavy sleep , the night of Arthur Stuart 's visit . She heard the drip of the dreary November rain upon the roof , and all the light and warmth seemed stricken from the universe save the fierce fire in her own heart . When she woke in the late morning , great splashes of sunlight were leaping and quivering like living things across the foot of her bed ; she sprang up , dazed for a moment by the flood of light in the room , and went to the window and looked out upon a sun-kissed world smiling in the arms of a perfect Indian summer day . A happy little sparrow chirped upon the window sill , and some children ran across the street bare-headed , exulting in the soft air .