midnight
She was outside , under the stars , thinking and praying to God for strength . Mercedes was no longer walking . She had sat down on a wide marble bench outside the glass flower house . Here , with the moonlight beaming through the leaves of the trees over head , her face was modelled by the shadows thereof , and there occasionally glistened shiny tears that slid across her face like meteorites that flashed by in a starless midnight sky . She mourned for her loss . From a hanging terrace above her head , loomed a figure of a man , keeping himself in the phantom shadows , so that he could not be seen and still be able to watch whatever activity would be below . He observed the fair young woman below , and wondered who she was .