midnight
This wandering in peignoirs would continue till three o'clock , and then Laurence might say , as if nerving herself to an unusual and immense effort : `` I must be dressed by five o'clock . I have not a moment . '' Often Madame Foucault did not dress at all ; on such days she would go to bed immediately after dinner , with the remark that she did n't know what was the matter with her , but she was exhausted . And then the servant would retire to her seventh floor , and there would be silence until , now and then , faint creepings were heard at midnight or after . Once or twice , through the chinks of her door , Sophia had seen a light at two o'clock in the morning , just before the dawn . Yet these were the women who had saved her life , who between them had put her into a cold bath every three hours night and day for weeks ! Surely it was impossible after that to despise them for shiftlessness and talkative idling in peignoirs ; impossible to despise them for anything whatever !