midnight
Was there any reality in that jesting contract with Keyork Arabian ? She must wait before she did the deed . The nuns would go down into the lighted church , and kneel and pray before the altar . It would last some time , the midnight lessons , the psalms , the prayers -- and she must be sure that all was quiet , for the deed could not be done in the room where Beatrice was sleeping . She was conscious of the time now , and every minute seemed an hour , and every second was full of that one deed , done over and over again before her eyes , until every awful detail of the awful whole was stamped indelibly upon her brain . She had sat down now , and leaning forwards , was watching the innocent woman and wondering how she would look when she was doing it . But she was calm now , as she felt that she had never been in her life .