midnight
Tom was not sleepy , and he lay for a long time recalling the dreams and emotions that had so stirred him earlier in the evening , as he had listened to the Marquis 's playing . He kept whistling softly to himself such bars of the music as he could remember . Dan 's chamber faced west , and Tom 's bed was so placed that he could look out , without raising his head from the pillow , over the court in the rear of the Inn and into the misty depths of Lovel 's Woods beyond the offices and stables . As he lay half-consciously musing -- it must have been near midnight -- his attention was suddenly riveted upon the court below . It seemed to him that he heard footsteps . He was instantly wide awake , and jumped from the bed to the window , whence he peered from behind the curtain into the courtyard . Close to the wall of the Inn , directly beneath the window , a shadow flitted on the moonlight-flooded pavement , and he could hear the crumbling of the snow .