midnight
`` Recommence ? '' said Mr Paton , in a hard voice ; `` and who will give me back the hope and vigour of the last fifteen years ? how shall I have the heart again to toil through the same long trains of research and thought ? where are the hundreds of references which I had sought out and verified with hours of heavy midnight labour ? how am I to have access again to the scores of books which I consulted before I began to work ? The very thought of it sickens me . Youth and hope are over .