midnight
He lay down and slept like a boy , disturbed by no dreams and troubled by no shadowy revival of dangers or emotions past . He had placed a gulf between himself and his former life . What had passed between him and Faustina , might under other circumstances have become but a romantic episode in the past , to be thought of with a certain tender regret , half fatuous , half genuine , whenever the moonlight chanced to cast the right shadow and the artist 's mind was in the contemplative mood . The peculiar smell of broken masonry , when it is a little damp , would recall the impression , perhaps ; an old wall knocked to pieces by builders would , through his nostrils , bring vividly before him that midnight meeting amid the ruins of the barracks , just as the savour of a certain truffle might bring back the memory of a supper at Voisin 's , or as , twenty years hence , the pasty grittiness of rough maize bread would make him remember the days when he was chasing brigands in the Samnite hills . But this was not to be the case this time . There was more matter for reminiscence than a ray of moonlight on a fair face , or the smell of crumbling mortar . There was a deep and sincere devotion on both sides , in two persons both singularly capable of sincerity , and both foresaw that the result of this love could never be indifference .