three o'clock in the morning
When everything else has gone , then it shows itself bare in the bleak small hours . And at first it had seemed so light a matter ! He went to bed , feeling dog-tired , he went to bed at an hour and with a finished completeness that Merkle would have regarded as entirely becoming in a young gentleman of his position . And a little past three o'clock in the morning he awoke to a mood of indescribable desolation . He awoke with a start to an agony of remorse and self-reproach . For a time he lay quite still staring at the darkness , then he groaned and turned over . Then , suddenly , like one who fancies he hears a strange noise , he sat up in bed and listened .