midnight
Shower gusts , and the wail and hiss of the rows of fir-trees bordering the garden , came between , and allowed him a moment 's incredulity as to its being a human voice . Such a cry will often haunt the moors and wolds from above at nightfall . The voice hied on , sank , seemed swallowed ; it rose , as if above water , in a hush of wind and trees . The trees bowed their heads rageing , the voice drowned ; once more to rise , chattering thrice rapidly , in a high-pitched key , thin , shrill , weird , interminable , like winds through a crazy chamber-door at midnight . The voice of a broomstick-witch in the clouds could not be thinner and stranger : Lord Romfrey had some such thought . Dr. Gannet was the bearer of Miss Denham 's excuses to Lord Romfrey for the delay in begging him to enter the house : in the confusion of the household his lordship 's card had been laid on the table below , and she was in the sick-room . ` Is my nephew a dead man ? '