midnight
Do you know what my last journey was like , Lotta ? It was the long dreary journey from Forêtdechêne to St. Katharine 's Wharf , when Mr. Hawkehurst advised and arranged my return to England . I had been sitting quite alone in a balcony overlooking the little town . It was after midnight , but the lights were still burning : I can see the lamplit windows shining through the night mist as I write this , and the sense of the hopeless misery of that time comes back to me like the breath of some freezing wind . I can find no words to tell you how desolate I was that night , or how hopeless . I dared not think of my future life ; or of the next day , that was to be the beginning of that hopeless future . I was obliged to bind my thoughts to the present and all its dreariness ; and a kind of dull apathetic feeling , which was too dull for despair , took possession of me that night .