eleven o'clock
She saw Mr. Francis run forward quickly , gesticulating like a conductor , and at his signal the long line swayed forward , split , recoiled , and again slid swiftly forward , breaking as it did so into twenty streams that poured along the seats and filled them in a moment . Men ran and pushed , aprons flapped , hands beckoned , all without coherent words . There was a knocking of feet , the crash of an overturned chair , and then , as if a god had lifted his hand for quiet , the music ceased abruptly , sending a wild echo that swooned and died in a moment ; a great sigh filled its place , and , in the coloured sunshine that lay along the immense length of the gangway that ran open now from west to east , far down in the distant nave , a single figure was seen advancing . What Mabel saw and heard and felt from eleven o'clock to half-an-hour after noon on that first morning of the New Year she could never adequately remember . For the time she lost the continuous consciousness of self , the power of reflection , for she was still weak from her struggle ; there was no longer in her the process by which events are stored , labelled and recorded ; she was no more than a being who observed as it were in one long act , across which considerations played at uncertain intervals . Eyes and ear seemed her sole functions , communicating direct with a burning heart . * * * * * She did not even know at what point her senses told her that this was Felsenburgh .