the hour of ten
Had she looked for the last time on the man whom she loved beyond everything else on earth , whom she worshipped more ardently day by day ? Was she even now carrying within the folds of her kerchief a message from a dying man to his comrades ? Mechanically she followed Chauvelin down the corridor and along the passages which she had traversed a brief half-hour ago . From some distant church tower a clock tolled the hour of ten . It had then really only been little more than thirty brief minutes since first she had entered this grim building , which seemed less stony than the monsters who held authority within it ; to her it seemed that centuries had gone over her head during that time . She felt like an old woman , unable to straighten her back or to steady her limbs ; she could only dimly see some few paces ahead the trim figure of Chauvelin walking with measured steps , his hands held behind his back , his head thrown up with what looked like triumphant defiance . At the door of the cubicle where she had been forced to submit to the indignity of being searched by a wardress , the latter was now standing , waiting with characteristic stolidity .