2 a.m. in
the morning
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 . Nella kept her post near the door of the state-room , and at length she was rewarded by seeing it open . Four middle-aged Englishmen issued from it .