midnight
How he stood it -- how he ever dragged through those miserable hours -- he himself never could understand . The wide sculptured eyes of Our Lady of Morteyn above the shrine seemed to soften when he went there to sit at her feet and stare at nothing . It was not tears , but dew , that gathered under the stone lids , for the night had grown suddenly hot , and everything lay moist in the starlight . Night changed to midnight , and midnight to dawn , and dawn to another day , cloudless , pitiless ; and Jack awoke again , and his waking thought was of Lorraine . All day long he sat with the old vicomte , reading to him when he wished , playing interminable games of chess , sick at heart with a longing that almost amounted to anger . He could not tell his aunt . As far as that went , the wise old lady had divined that their first trouble had come to them in all the appalling and exaggerated proportions that such troubles assume , but she smiled gently to herself , for she , too , had been young , and the ways of lovers had been her ways , and the paths of love she had trodden , and she had drained love 's cup at bitter springs .