midnight
She protested that she was not : she intended to read for an hour . He begged to have the hour dedicated to him . `` I shall be relieved by conversing with a friend . '' No subterfuge crossed her mind ; she thought his midnight visit to the boy 's bedside a pretty feature in him ; she was full of pity , too ; she yielded to the strange request , feeling that it did not become `` an old woman '' to attach importance even to the public discovery of midnight interviews involving herself as one , and feeling also that she was being treated as an old friend in the form of a very old woman . Her mind was bent on arresting any recurrence to the project she had so frequently outlined in the tongue of innuendo , of which , because of her repeated tremblings under it , she thought him a master . He conducted her along the corridor to the private sitting-room of the ladies Eleanor and Isabel . `` Deceit ! ''