midnight
`` What they expect , '' she said , looking up from her pillows with tragic eyes , `` is that the police and the troops will join them . You do n't think they will , do you ? '' They reassured her , and after a time she slept again . When she wakened , at midnight , the room was empty save for a nurse reading under a night lamp behind a screen . Elinor was not in pain . She lay there , listening to the night sounds of the hospital , the watchman shuffling along the corridor in slippers , the closing of a window , the wail of a newborn infant far away . There was a shuffling of feet in the street below , the sound of many men , not marching but grimly walking , bent on some unknown errand .