eleven o’clock at night
He took advantage of the moment when the two speakers were at one end of the walk to slip noiselessly to the other . After half an hour of struggling he got to the end of the avenue , and there took up a position whence , without being seen or heard , he could watch the two women without being observed by them as they came towards him . What was Rodolphe 's amazement on recognizing the deaf-mute as one of them ; she was talking to Miss Lovelace in Italian . It was now eleven o'clock at night . The stillness was so perfect on the lake and around the dwelling , that the two women must have thought themselves safe ; in all Gersau there could be no eyes open but theirs . Rodolphe supposed that the girl 's dumbness must be a necessary deception . From the way in which they both spoke Italian , Rodolphe suspected that it was the mother tongue of both girls , and concluded that the name of English also hid some disguise .