midnight
`` Ah ! a pure influence such as yours '' -- Here , rather to Damaris ' thankfulness , words appeared to fail him . He moved to the piano and exhaled his remaining emotion in song . Affairs had reached the above point about ten days after Henrietta 's party and Damaris ' midnight walk with Colonel Carteret by the shore of the sounding sea . General Frayling , though mending , was still possessed of a golden complexion and a temperature slightly above the normal , while his dutiful wife , still self-immured , was in close attendance , when an event occurred which occasioned her considerable speculation and perplexity . It came about thus . At her request Marshall Wace walked up to the station early that morning , to secure the English papers on their arrival by the mail train from Paris .