midnight
Let the world find that for which it is looking , my friend -- my brother : the strong man armed who can stand where others faint and fall . Oh , I wish I knew how to say the word that would make you the man you were meant to be ! '' When it was said , she was gone and the sound of the closing door was in his ears when he turned and went slowly down the driveway and out on the white pike , lying like a snowy ribbon under the December stars . On the highway he hung undecided for a moment ; but an hour later , William Layne , driving homeward from South Tredegar , overtook him plodding slowly southward far beyond the head of Paradise ; and it was nearing midnight when he won back , pacing steadily past the Deer Trace and Woodlawn gates and holding his way down the pike to Gordonia . The railway station was his goal ; and when he had aroused the sleepy night operator and gained admittance , he sat at the telegraph table to write a message . It was to Norman , addressed to intercept the salesman at the breakfast stop . `` Cancel Pennsylvania date and come in at once to take managership of plant , '' was the wording of it ; and at the breakfast-table the following morning Tom announced his intention of leaving the industrial plow in the furrow while he should go to Boston to complete his course in the technical school .