eight o’clock
She had scribbled a brief note to him to expect her back in a day or two , and had posted this at Dover . The steamer was the Marie Henriette , a large and luxurious boat , whose state-rooms on deck vie with the glories of the Cunard and White Star liners . One of these state-rooms , the best , was evidently occupied , for every curtain of its windows was carefully drawn . Nella did not hope that the Baroness was on board ; it was quite possible for the Baroness to have caught the eight o'clock steamer , and it was also possible for the Baroness not to have gone to Ostend at all , but to some other place in an entirely different direction . Nevertheless , Nella had a faint hope that the lady who called herself Zerlinski might be in that curtained stateroom , and throughout the smooth moonlit voyage she never once relaxed her observation of its doors and its windows . The Maria Henriette arrived in Ostend Harbour punctually at 2 a.m. in the morning . There was the usual heterogeneous , gesticulating crowd on the quay .