midnight
It swept through the gate , it passed through to the open , and bore far along the Corraterie , far along the ramparts , ay , to the open country , the earnest of victory , the earnest of vengeance . Geneva was saved . He who would have betrayed it , slain like Pyrrhus the Epirote by a woman 's hand , lay dead in the dark lane behind the house in which he had lived . Anne was but one of some thousands of women who passed through the trial of that night ; who heard the vague sounds of disquiet that roused them at midnight grow to sharp alarms , and these again -- to the dull , pulsing music of the tocsin -- swell to the uproar of a deadly conflict waged by desperate men in narrow streets . She was but one of thousands who that night heard fate knocking at their hearts ; who praying , sick with fear , for the return of their men , showed white faces at barred windows , and by every tossing light that passed along the lane viewed long years of loneliness or widowhood . But Anne had this burden also ; that she had of herself sent her man into danger ; her man , who , but for her pleading , but for her bidding , might not have gone . And that thought , though she had done her duty , laid a cold grip upon her heart .