midnight
It may be remembered that such a sound had led me to her in the middle of the night on which she died . Whether I really heard the sound , or only fancied I heard it -- by some half-mechanical action of the brain , roused by the association of ideas -- I do not even yet know . It may have been changed or expanded into a groan , from one of those innumerable sounds heard in every old house in the stillness of the night ; for such , in the absence of the correction given by other sounds , assume place and proportion as it were at their pleasure . What lady has not at midnight mistaken the trail of her own dress on the carpet , in a silent house , for some tumult in a distant room ? Curious to say , however , it now led to the same action as the groan I had heard so many years before ; for I caught up my candle at once , and took my way down to the kitchen , and up the winding stair behind the chimney to grannie 's room . Strange as it may seem , I had not been in it since my return ; for my thoughts had been so entirely occupied with other things , that , although I now and then looked forward with considerable expectation to a thorough search of the place , especially of the bureau , I kept it up as a _ bonne bouche _ , the anticipation of which was consolation enough for the postponement . I confess it was with no little quavering of the spirit that I sought this chamber in the middle of the night .