half past eleven
So Betty waited , dividing her time between `` The Canterbury Tales '' -- she had not money enough to dare to waste any on a magazine -- and a woman , who was also waiting for the belated ten-thirty . Her baby was ill , she told Betty ; she feared it would die before she could get to it . Betty 's own weariness and discouragement sank into insignificance beside her companion 's trouble , and in trying to reassure her she became quite cheerful herself . At half past eleven that night Madeline Ayres heard something bang against her window and looked out to find Betty Wales standing in the drifts , snowballing the front windows of the Belden House with an impartiality born of despair . `` I thought I should never wake any one up , '' she said , when Madeline had unlocked the door and let her into the grateful warmth of the hall . `` The bell would n't ring and I was so afraid out there , and I 've been ten hours coming from New York , and I 'm starved , Madeline . '' When , after having enjoyed a delicious , if not particularly digestible supper of coffee and Welsh rarebit in Madeline 's room , Betty crept softly to her own , and turned up the gas just far enough to undress by , Helen woke and sat straight up in bed .