about six
o'clock
The question followed , `` Where was I to go ? '' I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night : in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road ; and Mr. Rochester looked on with his arms folded -- smiling sardonically , as it seemed , at both her and me . I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return ; for I did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote . I proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself ; and very quietly , after leaving my box in the ostler 's care , did I slip away from the George Inn , about six o'clock of a June evening , and take the old road to Thornfield : a road which lay chiefly through fields , and was now little frequented . It was not a bright or splendid summer evening , though fair and soft : the haymakers were at work all along the road ; and the sky , though far from cloudless , was such as promised well for the future : its blue -- where blue was visible -- was mild and settled , and its cloud strata high and thin . The west , too , was warm : no watery gleam chilled it -- it seemed as if there was a fire lit , an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapour , and out of apertures shone a golden redness . I felt glad as the road shortened before me : so glad that I stopped once to ask myself what that joy meant : and to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going , or to a permanent resting-place , or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival .