midnight
Not very likely , that , in view of his prospects . She must want to regularize her position . Or -- is he not in love with her at all ? '' On which cogitations there fell presently the strokes of many bells tolling midnight , and left them still unresolved . Only one positive impression remained -- that Jacob Delafield had somehow grown , vaguely but enormously , in mental and moral bulk during the years since he had left Oxford -- the years of Bury 's Persian exile . Sir Wilfrid had been an intimate friend of his dead father , Lord Hubert , and on very friendly terms with his lethargic , good-natured mother . She , by-the-way , was still alive , and living in London with a daughter .