midnight
It seemed to her as if she had heard a distant cry . Perhaps she had only imagined she had heard it in her slumbers , and perhaps what she had dreamt was so awful and what she fancied she had heard was so terrible , that it had awakened her . She began to listen attentively . After midnight every light sound seems so loud . She fancied in the great stillness that she could hear rapidly approaching footsteps . Again a cry ! like the cry of a hunted beast , like the cry of a wounded wolf !