two in the morning
And for a week an Italy of brigands and bravoes , and stealthy surprises haunted shadows of picturesque archways , an Italy of chromo-lithographed skies and draperies in the Southdown Road . Maggie was spoken of with alternate fear and hate ; her wickedness seemed more than natural , and had the Southdown Road known anything of Italian opera , there is little doubt that Miss Brookes would have been compared to Lucretia Borgia . The young women looked out of their windows at night , and wondered how they 'd feel if a troubadour were suddenly to sing to them from behind the privet hedges . The young men were even more impressed than their womenfolk ; they cursed their place of birth and habitation , knowing that it incapacitated them from knowing her ; they wasted their mothers ' candles sitting up till two in the morning writing odes to cruel women with raven hair ; and all gazed sadly on the old ship in the harbour , and the Spanish main seemed nearer , and those gallant days more realisable than they had ever been before . The direct cause of this revival of romance lived , however , unconscious of it . She was genuinely frightened . She said her prayers with great fervour , begging God that He might save Frank , and that she might not be a murderess .