the hour of twelve
He hastened to his room , locked the door , flung himself on his sofa , and burst into a violent and almost feminine paroxysm of tears . This fit lasted for more than an hour ; and when Clarence at length stilled the indignant swellings of his heart , and rose from his supine position , he started , as his eye fell upon the opposite mirror , so haggard and exhausted seemed the forced and fearful calmness of his countenance . With a hurried step ; with arms now folded on his bosom , now wildly tossed from him ; and the hand so firmly clenched that the very bones seemed working through the skin ; with a brow now fierce , now only dejected ; and a complexion which one while burnt as with the crimson flush of a fever , and at another was wan and colourless , like his whose cheek a spectre has blanched , -- Clarence paced his apartment , the victim not only of shame , -- the bitterest of tortures to a young and high mind , -- but of other contending feelings , which alternately exasperated and palsied his wrath , and gave to his resolves at one moment an almost savage ferocity and at the next an almost cowardly vacillation . The clock had just struck the hour of twelve when a knock at the door announced a visitor . Steps were heard on the stairs and presently a tap at Clarence 's room-door . He unlocked it and the Duke of Haverfield entered . `` I am charmed to find you at home , '' cried the duke , with his usual half kind , half careless address .