midnight
There was no shaking him , and the spirits of all of us rose after this new pledge of loyalty . Stoddard stayed for dinner , and afterward we began again our eternal quest for the treasure , our hopes high from Larry 's lucky strike of the afternoon , and with a new eagerness born of the knowledge that the morrow would certainly bring us face to face with the real crisis . We ranged the house from tower to cellar ; we overhauled the tunnel , for , it seemed to me , the hundredth time . It was my watch , and at midnight , after Stoddard and Larry had reconnoitered the grounds and Bates and I had made sure of all the interior fastenings , I sent them off to bed and made myself comfortable with a pipe in the library . I was glad of the respite , glad to be alone , -- to consider my talk with Marian Devereux at St. Agatha 's , and her return with Pickering . Why could she not always have been Olivia , roaming the woodland , or the girl in gray , or that woman , so sweet in her dignity , who came down the stairs at the Armstrongs ' ? Her own attitude toward me was so full of contradictions ; she had appeared to me in so many moods and guises , that my spirit ranged the whole gamut of feeling as I thought of her .