midnight
Her own distress , the plight of the men in grey -- these near matters as well as all she had known or imagined of grief -- everything was expressed in this soft mourning of the wind in the trees . At first she felt like weeping . This sound told her of human impotency and doom . Then later the trees and the wind breathed strength to her , sang of sacrifice , of dauntless effort , of hard carven faces that did not blanch when Duty came at midnight or at noon . She turned often to scan the shadowy figures that moved from time to time in the light at the barn door . Once she trod upon a stick , and it flopped , crackling in the intolerable manner of all sticks . At this noise , however , the guards at the barn made no sign .