midnight
` I shall try to get home for dinner . ' ` What time ? ' ` Not before eight . ' ` I shall not see you before twelve , ' she replied , and she experienced a sad sinking of the heart when she heard the door close behind him , a sad sinking that she would have to endure till she heard his latchkey , and that would not be for many hours , perhaps not till midnight . She did not know how she would be able to endure all these hours ; to sleep some of them away would be the best thing she could do , and with that intention she drew down the blind and threw herself on the bed , and lay between sleeping and waking till the afternoon . Then , feeling a little better , she rang and asked for a cup of tea . It tasted very insipid , but she gulped it down as best she could , making wry faces and feeling more miserable than ever she had felt before ; afraid to look back on yesterday , afraid to look forward on the morrow , she bethought herself of the past , of the happy days when Montgomery used to come and teach her to sing , and her triumphs in the part of Clairette ; she was quite as successful in Serpolette ; people had liked her in Serpolette , and to recall those days more distinctly she opened a box in which she kept her souvenirs : a withered flower , a broken cigarette-holder , two or three old buttons that had fallen from his clothes , and a lock of hair , and it was under these that the prize of prizes lay -- a string of false pearls .