midnight
No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement , save where , far up in the clear depths of space , the glittering star-battalions of a wronged and forgotten God held their steadfast watch and kept their hourly chronicle . London with its brilliant `` season '' seemed the only living fact worth recognising ; London , with its flaring noisy streets , and its hot summer haze interposed like a grey veil between itself and the higher vision . Enough for most people it was to see the veil , -- beyond it the view is always too vast and illimitable for the little vanities of ordinary mortal minds . Amid all the din and turmoil of fashion and folly seeking its own in the great English capital at the midnight hour , a certain corner of an exclusively fashionable quarter seemed strangely quiet and sequestered , and this was the back of one of the row of palace-like dwellings known as Carlton House Terrace . Occasionally a silent-wheeled hansom , brougham , or flashing motor-car sped swiftly along the Mall , towards which the wide stone balcony of the house projected , -- or the heavy footsteps of a policeman walking on his beat crunched the gravel of the path beneath , but the general atmosphere of the place was expressive of solitude and even of gloom . The imposing evidences of great wealth , written in bold headlines on the massive square architecture of the whole block of huge mansions , only intensified the austere sombreness of their appearance , and the fringe of sad-looking trees edging the road below sent a faint waving shadow in the lamplight against the cold walls , as though some shuddering consciousness of happier woodland scenes had suddenly moved them to a vain regret . The haze of heat lay very thickly here , creeping along with slow stealth like a sluggish stream , and a suffocating odour suggestive of some subtle anæsthetic weighed the air with a sense of nausea and depression .