about three in the morning
She got to sleep and slept awhile ; then awoke to the worst solitude a vexed soul knows -- those terrible `` small hours '' of the morning . Then , every mere insect of evil omen that daylight has kept in bounds grows to the size of an elephant , and what was the whirring of his wings becomes discordant thunder . Then palliatives lose their market-value , and every clever self-deception that stands between us and acknowledged ill bursts , bubblewise , and leaves the soul naked and unarmed against despair . Gwen waked without provocation at about three in the morning ; waked Heaven knew why ! -- for there was all the raw material of a good night 's rest ; the candidate for the sleepership ; a prodigiously comfortable bed ; dead silence , not so much as an owl in the still night she looked out into during an excursion warranted to promote sleep -- but never sleep itself ! She had been dragged reluctantly from a dreamless Nirvana into the presence of a waking nightmare -- two great beautiful eyes that looked at her and saw nothing ; and this coercion , she somehow felt , was really due to an unaccountable absence of mind on her part . Surely she could have kept asleep with a little more common sense .