ten o’clock
Send him word to be here to-morrow at three o'clock . '' Pascal spent so dreadful a night that he rose late , saying , as an excuse , that he had one of his old headaches . He found relief only under the icy deluge of the shower bath . At ten o'clock he left the house , saying he would go himself to see Ramond ; but he had another object in going out -- he had seen at a show in Plassans a corsage of old point d'Alencon ; a marvel of beauty which lay there awaiting some lover 's generous folly , and the thought had come to him in the midst of the tortures of the night , to make a present of it to Clotilde , to adorn her wedding gown . This bitter idea of himself adorning her , of making her beautiful and fair for the gift of herself , touched his heart , exhausted by sacrifice . She knew the corsage , she had admired it with him one day wonderingly , wishing for it only to place it on the shoulders of the Virgin at St. Saturnin , an antique Virgin adored by the faithful . The shopkeeper gave it to him in a little box which he could conceal , and which he hid , on his return to the house , in the bottom of his writing-desk .