midnight
They left the road and struck across the links , Condy smoking his new-lighted pipe . But as they came around the edge of a long line of eucalyptus trees near the teeing ground , a warning voice suddenly called out : `` Fore ! '' Condy and Blix looked up sharply , and there in a group not twenty feet away , in tweeds and `` knickers , '' in smart , short golfing skirts and plaid cloaks , they saw young Sargeant and his sister , two other girls whom they knew as members of the fashionable `` set , '' and Jack Carter in the act of swinging his driving iron . As the clock in the library of the club struck midnight , Condy laid down his pen , shoved the closely written sheets of paper from him , and leaned back in his chair , his fingers to his tired eyes . He was sitting at a desk in one of the further corners of the room and shut off by a great Japanese screen . He was in his shirt-sleeves , his hair was tumbled , his fingers ink-stained , and his face a little pale . Since late in the evening he had been steadily writing .