midnight
I dare not hope , and I dare not despair . I may have news for you to-morrow , but what it may be I must not guess . ` M. ' This was cold comfort , but he had not expected more , and he strolled away in sheer vacuity of heart and thought to the principal theatre of the city , where just then a bright comic opera was running . The lights , the gay music , the brilliantly-dressed crowd upon the stage , made no impression on his mind , and his saturnine and gloomy face was in such contrast to the loud hilarity of the audience that he felt himself a blot upon the house , and at the first fall of the curtain withdrew into the streets , where he wandered listlessly until midnight He was fatigued , and slept heavily for some hours , but he was awake again long before the household was astir , and suffered all the weariness and chagrin which assailed the unoccupied mind in hours of suspense and doubt . Another brief note reached him by the first post . ` Mother has spoken a great deal to-night of my brother George , who , as you know , is already in London . I do not know what to think of this , and I can scarcely dare to fancy what I should so much like to believe .