about midnight
Even unto this time had they not spoken together of their child , since the day of her departure . One night in August , a terrible storm swept over New York and its neighbourhood . Flash after flash of keen lightning blazed across the sky , and peal after peal of awful thunder rent the air . It came up about midnight , and continued for more than an hour . Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were roused from slumber by this terrible war of the elements . Its noise had troubled their sleep ere it awoke them , and their dreams were of their child . During its awful continuance , while they felt themselves more intimately in the hands of the All-Powerful , their many sins passed rapidly before them , but the stain that darkened the whole of the last ten years , the one crime of many years , which made their hearts sick within them with a strange fear , was their conduct towards their child .