seven o'clock
In all this I had a dreary something -- not pleasure -- but a sad , lonely satisfaction . The impulse under which I acted , the mood controlling me , were similar to the impulse and the mood which had induced me to visit the confessional . With quick walking I regained the pensionnat just at dark , and in time for dinner . At seven o'clock the moon rose . At half-past seven , when the pupils and teachers were at study , and Madame Beck was with her mother and children in the salle-à-manger , when the half-boarders were all gone home , and Rosine had left the vestibule , and all was still -- I shawled myself , and , taking the sealed jar , stole out through the first-classe door , into the berceau and thence into the `` allée défendue . '' Methusaleh , the pear-tree , stood at the further end of this walk , near my seat : he rose up , dim and gray , above the lower shrubs round him . Now Methusaleh , though so very old , was of sound timber still ; only there was a hole , or rather a deep hollow , near his root .