midnight
He may be strong and brave still , as he was when he went away ; but he is no longer the peerless and envied warrior . Men look upon him with a ghostly shudder , and women shrink back from his chilling presence . Not even Freja can thaw away all the ice that has gathered in his veins . He may chastise the robber Ruric from the hills , and sleep once more in the warm embrace of Isoldane ; but who knows that at some midnight hour the old curse may not return upon him and the hand he stretches in love and fondness strike death to the hearts that are dearest ? Not the same -- changed , changed -- as is every man who has once yielded to the great temptation of his existence . All this , which may be purely irrelevant matter , has grown out of a visit paid by some of the characters in this narration , to a fashionable restaurant and saloon on Broadway , and the belief that in some of those houses temptation is lurking in so insidious and deadly a form that they are doing a thousand times the injury inflicted by the acknowledged haunts of vice . Special allusion may or may not be made to the gorgeous but tawdry room in which the three sat down to discuss their _ a la mode _ beef , coffee and biscuits .