three
o'clock
From St. James 's Street below came no sounds at last . The clatter of the hoofs of horses had ceased , the rumble of drays carrying their night freights , the shouts of the newsboys making sensation out of rumours made in a newspaper office , had died away . Peace came , and a silver moon gave forth a soft light , which embalmed the old thoroughfare , and added a tenderness to its workaday dignity . In only one window was there a light at three o'clock . It was the window of Ian Stafford 's sitting-room . He had not left the Foreign Office till nearly ten o'clock , then had had a light supper at his club , had written letters there , and after a long walk up and down the Mall had , with reluctant feet , gone to his chambers . The work which for years he had striven to do for England had been accomplished .