midnight
`` You know '' -- `` Yes , I know everything , '' replied Tremayne , speaking almost as gently as a woman would have done , `` and I am sorry to say that it has to do with her . I know what your hopes have been with regard to her , and no man on earth could have wished to see those hopes fulfilled more earnestly than I have done , but '' -- `` What do you mean , Tremayne ? Speak out , and let me know the worst . If you tell me that I am to give her up , I tell you that I am '' -- '' ` That I am an English gentleman , and that I will break my heart rather than my oath ' -- that is what you will tell me when I tell you that you must not only give up your hopes of winning Natasha , but that it is the Master 's orders that you shall have the _ Ithuriel _ ready to sail at midnight to take her to America to Michael Roburoff , who has written to Natas to ask her for his wife . '' Arnold heard him out in dazed , stupefied silence . It seemed too monstrous , too horrible , to be true . The sudden blow had stunned him .