midnight
_ Lucas 's prophecy came to grief within five minutes of the making . For when the musketeer unbarred the house door for me , the first thing I saw was the morning sun . My spirits danced at sight of him , as he himself might dance on Easter day . Within the close , candle-lit room I had had no thought but that it was still black midnight ; and now at one step I passed from the gloomy house into the heartening sunshine of a new clean day . I ran along as joyously as if I had left the last of my troubles behind me , forgotten in some dark corner of the Hôtel de Lorraine . Always my heart lifts when , after hours within walls , I find myself in the open again . I am afraid in houses , but out of doors I have no fear of harm from any man or any thing .