noon
And I dare assert that long before this he had learned to chuckle over his youthful follies , and had protested to his wife that La Beale Ysoude squinted , or was freckled , or the like ; and had insisted , laughingly , that the best of us must sow our wild oats . And at the last it was his wife who mixed his gruel and smoothed his pillow and sat up with him at night ; so that if he died thinking of Madame Palomides rather than of La Beale Ysoude , who shall blame him ? Not I , for one , '' said John Bulmer , stoutly ; `` If it was not heroic , it was at least respectable , and , above all , natural ; and I expect some day to gasp out a similar valedictory . No , not to-morrow at noon , I think : I shall probably get out of this , somehow . And when , in any event , I set about the process of dying , I may be thinking of you , O fair lost lady ! and again I may not be thinking of you . Who can say ?