about five o'clock
It was so dark that she was obliged to wait till objects defined themselves black against black before she could see the stairs . She listened too . There were sounds , but only such sounds as all houses make when everyone is sleeping . She guessed , it was pure guessing , that it must be about five o'clock . She stole down the stairs . The necessity for keeping her mind on moving noiselessly deadened her thought to anything else . She neither looked back to what she was leaving behind , nor forward to what she was going to .