midnight
His nocturnal enjoyments , the noisy parties up-stairs in the middle of the night , had not helped to dissipate the effect of the anxieties of the city , which his wife so deplored . Mrs. Dennistoun that very day , when she came down-stairs in the fresh summer morning to her early breakfast , had seen through an open door the room up-stairs which was appropriated to Phil , with a lamp still burning in the daylight , cards lying strewn about the floor , and all in that direful disorder which a room so occupied overnight shows in the clear eye of the day . The aspect of the room had given her a shock almost more startling than any moral certainty , as was natural to a woman used to all the decorums and delicacies of a well-ordered life . There is no sin in going late to bed , or even letting a lamp burn into the day ; but the impression that such a sight makes even upon the careless is always greater than any mere apprehension by the mind of the midnight sitting , the eager game , the chances of loss and ruin . She had not been able to get that sight out of her eyes . Though on ordinary occasions she never entered Phil 's rooms , on this she had stolen in to put out the lamp , with the sensation in her mind of destroying some evidence against him , which someone less interested than she might have used to his disadvantage . And she had sent up the housemaid to `` do '' the room , with an admonition .