four o'clock in the morning
Footsteps rather felt than heard were in front of him . He pressed forward and peered through the darkness , and finally made out a dim form some thirty yards away . Idly he followed and soon recognized the figure as that of a woman hurrying fast . Why a woman should be crossing Nunsmere Common at four o'clock in the morning passed his power of conjecture . She was going neither to nor from the doctor , whose house lay behind the vicarage on the right . All at once her objective became clear to him . He thought of the splash of the stone .