about eleven o'clock
But that traveller had in the meantime gone stealthily round to the back of the homestead , and peering along the pinion-end of the house Roger discerned him unbridling and haltering his horse with his own hands in the shed there . Roger retired to the neighbouring inn called the Black Lamb , and meditated . This mysterious method of approach determined him , after all , not to leave the place till he had ascertained more definite facts of his sister 's position -- whether she were the deluded victim of the stranger or the wife she obviously believed herself to be . Having eaten some supper , he left the inn , it being now about eleven o'clock . He first looked into the shed , and , finding the horse still standing there , waited irresolutely near the door of his sister 's lodging . Half an hour elapsed , and , while thinking he would climb into a loft hard by for a night 's rest , there seemed to be a movement within the shutters of the sitting-room that his sister occupied . Roger hid himself behind a faggot - stack near the back door , rightly divining that his sister 's visitor would emerge by the way he had entered .