noon
`` It 's the last time I 'll ever let her have a horse , and I told her so . '' There came a blast of northwest wind which buffeted them about their faces and chests like an icy flail , and they scattered before it , some to their duties in the stable , some into the warm tavern for a mug of something hot to do away with the chill . It was too cold a day to gossip in a doorway . It was not long past noon , but the cold had seemed to strengthen as the sun rode higher . The wind blew from the icy northwest more frequently in fiercer gusts . Madelon Hautville sped along before it , her red cloak flying out like a flag , and took no thought of it at all . She was , while still in the flesh and upon the earth , so intensified in spirit that there existed for her consciousness neither heat nor cold .