about six o'clock
As he sedulously avoided any semblance of dogging her footsteps , he could not know how she was being persecuted by de la Vere , Vavasour , and one or two other men of like habit . That knowledge was yet to come . Consequently he deemed her altogether too prudish , and was so out of patience with her that he and Stampa went off for a two days ' climb by way of the Muretto Pass to Chiareggio and back to Sils-Maria over the Fex glacier . Footsore and tired , but thoroughly converted to the marvels of the high Alps , he reached the Kursaal side by side with the postman who brought the chief English mail about six o'clock each evening . He waited with an eager crowd of residents while the hall porter sorted the letters . There were some for him from America , and one from London in a handwriting that was strange to him . But he had quick eyes , and he saw that a letter addressed to Miss Helen Wynton , in the flamboyant envelope of `` The Firefly , '' bore the same script .