midnight
He had half expected that Mrs. Vervain , though he had not answered her last letter , might write to him again from England , but she did not . The Vervains had passed out of his world ; he knew that they had been in it only by the torment they had left him . He wondered in a listless way that he should see nothing of Don Ippolito . Once at midnight he fancied that the priest was coming towards him across a campo he had just entered ; he stopped and turned back into the calle : when the priest came up to him , it was not Don Ippolito . In these days Ferris received a dispatch from the Department of State , informing him that his successor had been appointed , and directing him to deliver up the consular flags , seals , archives , and other property of the United States . No reason for his removal was given ; but as there had never been any reason for his appointment , he had no right to complain ; the balance was exactly dressed by this simple device of our civil service . He determined not to wait for the coming of his successor before giving up the consular effects , and he placed them at once in the keeping of the worthy ship-chandler who had so often transferred them from departing to arriving consuls .