midnight
They had inherited from her such strong domestic feelings that they felt her defection from all family ties for the sake of the absent father and brothers , felt it with a poignancy which the use and wont of those winter months did not seem to blunt . No sudden shock or fit came to bring about the end . Gradually the old dame 's strength failed . There came an hour in the spring time -- it was the midnight hour of an April night -- when she lay upon her bed , sitting up high against white pillows , gasping for the last breaths that she would ever draw . They had drawn aside the old-fashioned bed-curtains , so that they hung like high dark pillars at the four posts . They had opened wide the windows , and the light spring wind blew through the room fresh with the dews of night . Outside , the moon was riding among her clouds ; the night was white .