five o'clock
`` No , Owen , no , it 's impossible , you do n't understand . I do n't blame you -- you never will understand . '' And they looked at each other like wanderers standing on the straits dividing two worlds . The hands of the clock pointed to five o'clock . The servants had taken the tea-service away . Owen had urged Evelyn not to abandon the stage ; he had urged the cause of Art ; he had urged that her voice was her natural vocation ; he had spoken of their love , and of the happiness they had found in each other -- the conversation had drifted from an argument concerning the authenticity of the Gospels to a lake where they had spent a season five years ago . She saw again the reedy reaches and the steep mountain shores .