About midnight
Later lightning began to quiver through the darkness ; a wind awaking overhead whispered prophecy , wailed it , foreboding ; then slowly the woods filled with the roar of the rain . He was moving on , blindly , at random , conscious only of the necessity of motion . Where the underbrush halted him he sheered off into the open timber , feeling his way , falling sometimes , lying where he fell for a while till the scourge of necessity lashed him into motion again . About midnight the rain increased to a deluge , slackened fitfully , and died out in a light rattle of thunder ; star after star broke out through the dainty vapours overhead ; the trees sighed and grew quiet . For a while drumming drops from the branches filled the silence with a musical tattoo , then there remained no sound save , far away in the darkness , the muffled roar of some brook , brimming bank-high with the April rain . And Hamil , soaked , exhausted , and believing he could sleep , went back to the house . Toward morning sleep came .