nine o’clock
`` Take down these letters . '' After dinner , Wingrave went out alone . Aynesworth followed him about an hour later , when his work was done , and made his way towards the Vicarage . It was barely nine o'clock , but the little house seemed already to be in darkness . He rang twice before anybody answered him . Then he heard slow , shuffling footsteps within , and a tall , gaunt man , in clerical attire , and carrying a small lamp , opened the door . Aynesworth made the usual apologies and was ushered into a bare , gloomy-looking apartment which , from the fact of its containing a writing table and a few books , he imagined must be the study .