about midnight
But there was more to come . Just at this juncture an old , privileged servant took an opportunity , when he found the Count alone , of telling him that the Countess went out every night , and did not come home till daybreak . The Count 's blood ran cold . It struck him , as a matter which he had not quite realized before , that , for a short time back , there had fallen upon him , regularly about midnight , a curiously unnatural sleepiness , which he now believed to be caused by some narcotic administered to him by the Countess , to enable her to get away unobserved . The darkest suspicions and forebodings came into his mind . He thought of the diabolical mother , and that , perhaps , her instincts had begun to awake in her daughter . He thought of some possibility of a conjugal infidelity .