midnight
When this woman , of a really manly spirit , pictured herself as living in solitude , she felt her courage fail . She preferred the anticipated and inevitable miseries of this fierce intimacy to the absence of the joys , which were all the more exquisite because they arose from the midst of remorse , of terrible struggles with herself , of a _ No _ persuaded to be _ Yes _ . At every moment she seemed to come across the pool of bitter water found in a desert , and drunk with greater relish than the traveler would find in sipping the finest wines at a prince 's table . When Dinah wondered to herself at midnight : `` Will he come home , or will he not ? '' she was not alive again till she heard the familiar sound of Lousteau 's boots , and his well-known ring at the bell . She would often try to restrain him by giving him pleasure ; she would hope to be a match for her rivals , and leave them no hold on that agitated heart . How many times a day would she rehearse the tragedy of _ Le Dernier Jour d'un condamne _ , saying to herself , `` To-morrow we part . ''