midnight
It is wiser , not happier , to reach that estate called thought ; for now she asked herself very often how long this chapter of her life would last . Must the time come when he must leave her forever ? She thought it the bitterest of all to part as they had done before , with anger ; but any parting must be agony where she had loved so well . As he lay sleeping , he never knew what tears of midnight were plashing upon his face . He could not see how her little heart was bleeding as it throbbed . Yet she went right on , though sometimes the tears blinded her , till she could not see her needle ; but the consciousness that this love and labor had made her life more sanctified was , in some sort , compensation . One Sunday she rose before Ralph , and thinking that she was unobserved , stole out of the hotel and up the Boulevard .