midnight
She pitied and pardoned the moment , aware of its cause , and respecting him for the way in which he rose above it into the clear air of professional self-command . Through the first hours they worked shoulder to shoulder , conscious of each other only as of kindred will-powers , stretched to the utmost tension of discernment and activity , and hardly needing speech or look to further their swift co-operation . It was thus that she had known him in the hospital , in the heat of his youthful zeal : the doctor she liked best to work with , because no other so tempered ardour with judgment . The great surgeon , arriving from town at midnight , confirmed his diagnosis : there was undoubted injury to the spine . Other consultants were summoned in haste , and in the winter dawn the verdict was pronounced -- a fractured vertebra , and possibly lesion of the cord ... . Justine got a moment alone when the surgeons returned to the sick-room . Other nurses were there now , capped , aproned , quickly and silently unpacking their appliances ... .