one o'clock in the morning
Mary , when they were gone , let herself out by the other door as softly as she had come in . She fled down one flight of the stairs and a moment later had locked the door of her own room behind her . She switched on the light , gave a ragged laugh at Sir Galahad ; then lay down , just as she was , on the little white bed , her face in the pillow , and cried . It was hours later , well along toward one o'clock in the morning when Rush coming into his room saw a light under the door communicating with his sister 's and , knocking , was told he might come in . He found her in bed for the night , reclining against a stack of pillows as if she had been reading , but from the way she blinked at the softened light from the lamp on her night table , it appeared that she had switched it on only when she heard him coming . She might have been crying though she looked composed enough now ; -- symmetrically composed , indeed , a braid over each shoulder , her hands folded , her legs straight down the middle of the bed making a single ridge that terminated in a little peak where her feet stuck up -LRB- the way heroines lie , it occurred to Rush , in the last act of grand operas , when they are dead -RRB- and this effect was enhanced by the new-laundered whiteness of the sheet , neatly folded back over the blankets and the untumbled pillows . `` You always look so nice and clean , '' he told her , and , forbearing to sit on the edge of the bed as a pat of her hand invited him to , pulled up a chair instead .