eight o'clock
Once let notion get into the head of Nicholas , and no reasoning nor persuasion would drive it out . He made no allowances and permitted no excuses . If a thing looked wrong , then wrong it must be , and it was of no use to talk to him about it . That he should have found Elizabeth , who had been ordered to come home at eight o'clock , running in the opposite direction at half-past eight , was in his eyes an enormity which admitted of no explanations . That she either had been in mischief , or was then on her way to it , were the only two alternatives possible to the mind of her master . And circumstances were especially awkward for Elizabeth , since she could not give any explanation of her proceedings which would clear her in the eyes of her employers . Nicholas Clere , like many other people of prejudiced minds and fixed opinions , had a mind totally unfixed in the one matter of religion .