two o'clock in the morning
At night , however , he would go out and walk for miles , and in all weathers -- he seemed to dread spending the dark hours at home . When Angela had been back about a month in the old place , she accidentally got a curious insight into her father 's mental sufferings . It so happened that one night , finding it impossible to sleep , and being much oppressed by sorrowful thoughts , she thought that she would read the hours away . But the particular book she wanted to find was downstairs , and it was two o'clock in the morning , and chilly in the passages . However , anything is better than sleeplessness , and the tyranny of sad thoughts and empty longings ; so , throwing on her dressing-gown , she took a candle , and set off , thinking as she went how she had in the same guise fled before her husband . She got her book , and was returning , when she saw that there was still a light in her father 's study , and that the door was ajar . At that moment it so happened that an unusually sharp draught coming down one of the passages of the rambling old house , caught her candle and extinguished it .