ten o'clock
grunted Louvier . `` Something , however , in my letter , conjoined with what De N. had told her as to my state of mind , alarmed this poor woman , who had deigned to take in me an interest so little deserved . Her reply , very agitated and incoherent , was brought to me by her maid , who had taken my letter , and by whom , as I before said , our correspondence had been of late carried on . In her reply she implored me to decide , to reflect on nothing till I had seen her ; stated how the rest of her day was pre-engaged ; and since to visit her openly had been made impossible by the Due 's interdict , enclosed the key to the private entrance to her rooms , by which I could gain an interview with her at ten o'clock that night , an hour at which the Duc had informed her he should be out till late at his club . Now , however great the indiscretion which the Duchesse here committed , it is due to her memory to say that I am convinced that her dominant idea was that I meditated self-destruction ; that no time was to be lost to save me from it ; and for the rest she trusted to the influence which a woman 's tears and adjurations and reasonings have over even the strongest and hardest men . It is only one of those coxcombs in whom the world of fashion abounds who could have admitted a thought that would have done wrong to the impulsive , generous , imprudent eagerness of a woman to be in time to save from death by his own hand a fellow-being for whom she had conceived an interest . I so construed her note .