midnight
And that these few persons should be those endeared to her by every domestic tie no argument was needed to prove . That their happiness would be in proportion to her own well-doing , and power to remove their risks of indigence , required no proving either to her now . By a sorry but unconscious misapplication of sound and wide reasoning did the active mind of Ethelberta thus find itself a solace . At about the midnight hour she felt more fortified on the expediency of marriage with Lord Mountclere than she had done at all since musing on it . In respect of the second query , whether or not , in that event , to conceal from Lord Mountclere the circumstances of her position till it should be too late for him to object to them , she found her conscience inconveniently in the way of her theory , and the oracle before her afforded no hint . ` Ah -- it is a point for a casuist ! ' she said .