a quarter past nine o'clock
There is nothing but sorrow here in all our hearts ; sorrow , and an ever-present dread . '' Book the Eighth . A FIGHT AGAINST TIME . The early fast train by which Valentine Hawkehurst travelled brought him into town at a quarter past nine o'clock . During the journey he had been meditating on the way in which he should set to work when he arrived in London . No ignorance could be more profound than his on all points relating to the medical profession . Dimly floating in his brain there were the names of doctors whom he had heard of as celebrated men -- one for the chest , another for the liver , another for the skin , another for the eyes ; but , among all these famous men , who was the man best able to cope with the mysterious wasting away , the gradual , almost imperceptible ebbing of that one dear life which Valentine wanted to save ?