midnight
He should sleep in the morning until she had prepared his breakfast , and her fingers would fly in the summer , gathering the berries and fruit to make more money so that he should not run risks with the netting ! That first day of waiting seemed interminably long , but Tess spent it happily , for ever vividly into her mind came the words of Frederick the student -- that God would hear , and answer . Day by day her faith in the efficacy of her petitions had grown upon her . In spite of the fact that she had been caught by Daddy 's enemies in her nightly scrambles up the ivy at the jail , God had answered in letting her see her father so many times at the end of her midnight walks . * * * * * Three men of squatter 's row staggered through the storm up the Lehigh Valley tracks . They passed the line of huts , making an occasional comment upon the inhabitants of some lighted shanty . It was the evening of the second of November , the first day of Orn Skinner 's trial .