midnight
`` You 've only to go on board , miss , '' he said , `` your luggage will be seen to all right . '' And he hurried away to open the doors of the other carriages . I stood still , utterly bewildered , for a minute or two , with the wind tossing my hair about , and the rain beating in sharp , stinging drops like hailstones upon my face and hands . It must have been close upon midnight , and there was no light but the dim , glow-worm glimmer of the lanterns on deck . Every one was hurrying past me . I began almost to repent of the desperate step I had taken ; but I had learned already that there is no possibility of retracing one 's steps . At the gangways of the two vessels there were men shouting hoarsely .