midnight
But the fine , white , limestone Riviera dust from the fading car 's tire-heels , and the burnt gases from its engines , were all the road held for him , as it undulated off into hillside quietnesses . He heard the young Chicagoan calling after him , breathless and anxious . But he ran on until he came to a side street , shadowed with garden walls and villas and greenery . Slipping into this , he immured himself in the midnight silences , to be alone with the contending forces that tore at him . If his companion was right , and such things as this made up Romance , then , after all , the drama of life had lost none of its bewilderment . For the woman he had seen between the floating purple curtains was his own wife . Durkin 's first tangible feeling was a passion to lose and submerge himself in the muffling midnight silences , the silences of those outwardly quiet gardens at heart so old in sin and pain .