midnight
Together they groped in this difficult region , where the unfinished , the unfulfilled , the unwritten , the unreturned , came together in their ghostly way and wore the semblance of the complete and the satisfactory . The future emerged more splendid than ever from this construction of the present . Books were to be written , and since books must be written in rooms , and rooms must have hangings , and outside the windows there must be land , and an horizon to that land , and trees perhaps , and a hill , they sketched a habitation for themselves upon the outline of great offices in the Strand and continued to make an account of the future upon the omnibus which took them towards Chelsea ; and still , for both of them , it swam miraculously in the golden light of a large steady lamp . As the night was far advanced they had the whole of the seats on the top of the omnibus to choose from , and the roads , save for an occasional couple , wearing even at midnight , an air of sheltering their words from the public , were deserted . No longer did the shadow of a man sing to the shadow of a piano . A few lights in bedroom windows burnt but were extinguished one by one as the omnibus passed them . They dismounted and walked down to the river .