midnight
`` If you 'll help '' -- and , as she looked up , her eyes , now very close to mine , were dazzling indeed -- `` I 'll adore you for ever and ever ! Oh , MUCH longer than you 'd like me to ! '' `` You mean she 's going to -- '' `` I mean that she 's going to run away with him again , '' she whispered . At midnight there was no mistaking the palpable uneasiness with which Mr. Percy , faithful sentry , regarded the behaviour of Miss Elliott and myself as we sat conversing upon the veranda of the pavilion . It was not fear for the security of his prisoner which troubled him , but the unseemliness of the young woman 's persistence in remaining to this hour under an espionage no more matronly than that of a sketch-book abandoned on the table when we had come out to the open . The youth had veiled his splendours with more splendour : a long overcoat of so glorious a plaid it paled the planets above us ; and he wandered restlessly about the garden in this refulgence , glancing at us now and then with what , in spite of the insufficient revelation of the starlight , we both recognised as a chilling disapproval . The lights of the inn were all out ; the courtyard was dark .