midnight
She , Charity Royall , was the only being on earth who really knew him , knew him from the soles of his feet to the rumpled crest of his hair , knew the shifting lights in his eyes , and the inflexions of his voice , and the things he liked and disliked , and everything there was to know about him , as minutely and yet unconsciously as a child knows the walls of the room it wakes up in every morning . It was this fact , which nobody about her guessed , or would have understood , that made her life something apart and inviolable , as if nothing had any power to hurt or disturb her as long as her secret was safe . The room in which the girls sat was the one which had been Harney 's bedroom . He had been sent upstairs , to make room for the Home Week workers ; but the furniture had not been moved , and as Charity sat there she had perpetually before her the vision she had looked in on from the midnight garden . The table at which Harney had sat was the one about which the girls were gathered ; and her own seat was near the bed on which she had seen him lying . Sometimes , when the others were not looking , she bent over as if to pick up something , and laid her cheek for a moment against the pillow . Toward sunset the girls disbanded .