seven o'clock
There was no need to repeat the request -- Buvat set off at a trot , gained the Place des Victoires , the Rue du Mail , the Rue Montmartre , and at last arrived at his own house , No. 4 , Rue du Temps-Perdu , where , nevertheless , he did not think himself safe till he had shut the door and bolted it behind him . There he stopped an instant to breathe and to light his candle -- then ascended the stairs , but he felt in his legs the effect of the occurrence , for he trembled so that he could hardly get to the top . As to Bathilde , she had remained alone , getting more and more uneasy as the evening advanced . Up to seven o'clock she had seen a light in her neighbor 's room , but at that time the lamp had been extinguished , and had not been relighted . Then Bathilde 's time became divided between two occupations -- one of which consisted in standing at her window to see if her neighbor did not return ; the other in kneeling before the crucifix , where she said her evening prayers . She heard nine , ten , eleven , and half-past eleven , strike successively . She had heard all the noises in the streets die away one by one , and sink gradually into that vague and heavy sound which seems the breathing of a sleeping town ; and all this without bringing her the slightest inkling as to whether he who had called himself her brother had sunk under the danger which hung over his head , or come triumphant through the crisis .