midnight
`` Sleep-walking , of course ! '' said everybody , no matter what everybody might think . But , now that Major Plume knew that in her sleep his wife had wandered up the row to the very door -- the back door -- of Mr. Blakely 's quarters , was it not strange that he had taken no pains to prevent a recurrence of so compromising an excursion , for strange stories were afloat . Sentry No. 4 had heard and told of a feminine voice , `` somebody cryin ' like '' in the darkness of midnight about Blakely 's , and Norah Shaughnessy -- returned to her duties at the Trumans ' , yet worrying over the critical condition of her trooper lover , and losing thereby much needed sleep -- had gained some new and startling information . One night she had heard , another night she had dimly seen , a visitor received at Blakely 's back door , and that visitor a woman , with a shawl about her head . Norah told her mistress , who very properly bade her never refer to it again to a soul , and very promptly referred to it herself to several souls , one of them Janet Wren . Janet , still virtuously averse to Blakely , laid the story before her brother the very day he started on the warpath , and Janet was startled to see that she was telling him no news whatever .