midnight
Bertram Chester sold forthwith the Richmond lots , his first venture in business , to get ready money for the wisest or the most foolish investment which a young man of affairs can make in the beginning of his career -- general society . With all his youth , his energy and his eager attack on things , he plunged into the life of San Francisco . Only in that city of easy companionships and careless social scrutinies would such a sudden rise have been possible . His furnished room , where he used to read and study of evenings in his years of beginnings , knew him no more before midnight . He dropped away from those comrades of the lower sort with whom he had found his recreation ; abandoned and forgotten were his old lights of love . The milliner 's apprentice , a coarsely pretty little thing , used to wait for him sometimes on the doorstep . Mark Heath , coming home one night earlier than usual , found her there , took her for a walk about the block , and conveyed to her the unpleasant news that Bertram was now flying higher than her covey .