midnight
But as he turned to go down the stairs his eyes went full into an opposite cell and fell upon a vision of beauty and sorrow that immediately riveted his gaze . It was a small and graceful female figure , clothed in deep black , seated by the window , with her elbow resting upon the sill and her chin supported on her hand . Her eyes were cast down until her eyelashes lay like inky lines upon her snow-white cheek . Her face , of classic regularity and marble whiteness , bore a ghastly contrast to the long eyelashes , arched eyebrows and silken ringlets black as midnight . She might have been a statue or a picture , so motionless she sat . Conscious of the wrong of gazing upon this solitary woman , Traverse forced his looks away and passed on down-stairs , where he again met the old doctor and Mademoiselle Angele at breakfast . After breakfast Doctor St. Jean invited his young assistant to accompany him on a round of visits to the patients , and they went immediately up to the hall , at the end of which Traverse had slept .