midnight
He wished with all his heart that he had not made the horrible proposition to give them money ; but now that he had made it he lacked the strength to go back on it , not on Mildred 's account , but on his own . There was a morbid obstinacy in him which forced him to do the thing he had determined . He discovered that the three pages he had read had made no impression on him at all ; and he went back and started from the beginning : he found himself reading one sentence over and over again ; and now it weaved itself in with his thoughts , horribly , like some formula in a nightmare . One thing he could do was to go out and keep away till midnight ; they could not go then ; and he saw them calling at the house every hour to ask if he was in . He enjoyed the thought of their disappointment . He repeated that sentence to himself mechanically . But he could not do that .