midnight
Over and over Molly Brownwell read the letter and then crept out to her lilac thicket and wept till dawn . She heard Adrian Brownwell go , but she could not face him , and listened as his footsteps died away , and he passed from her life . And John Barclay kept vigil for the dead with her . As he tossed in his bed through the night , he seemed to see glowing out of the darkness before him the words Hendricks had written , in the letter that Dolan gave Barclay at midnight . Sometimes the farewell came to him : -- `` It is not this man of millions that I wish to be with a moment to-night , John -- but the boy I knew in the old days -- the boy who ran with me through the woods at Wilson 's Creek , the boy who rode over the hill into the world with me that September day forty years ago ; the boy whose face used to beam eagerly out of yours when you sat playing at your old melodeon . I wish to be near him a little while to-night . When you get this , ca n't you go to your great organ and play him back into consciousness and tell him Bob says good-by ? ''