midnight
said the marquis ; ` but I thank God I wear that motto about my heart , to as much purpose as they who wear it about their arms . ' ` He then , ' reports the doctor , ` began to be a little pleasant , and took a pipe of tobacco , and a little glass full of aqua mirabilis , and said , `` Come now , let us go in the name of God , '' crossing himself . ' My love for the marquis has led me to recount this curious story with greater minuteness than is necessary to the understanding of Dorothy 's part in what follows , but the worthy doctor 's account is so graphic that even for its own sake , had it been fitting , I would gladly have copied it word for word from the Certamen Religiosum . It is indeed a strange story -- king and marquis , attended by a doctor of divinity , of the faith of the one , but the trusted friend of the other , meeting -- at midnight , although in the house of the marquis -- to discuss points of theology -- both king and marquis in mortal terror of discovery . Meantime Dorothy had done as she had been ordered , had felt her way through the darkness to the picture-gallery , had locked the door at the top of the one stair , and taken her stand in the recess at the foot of the other -- in pitch darkness , close to the king 's bedchamber , for the gallery was but thirteen feet in width , keeping watch over him ! The darkness felt like awe around her . The door of the chamber opened : it gave no sound , but the glimmer of the night-light shone out .