Five minutes past eight
He wished , in a momentary panic , instantly suppressed , that he were safely away with Millie in the ketch . He was becoming hysterical , he told himself with compressed lips -- no better than Lichfield Stope . The latter rose greyly in his memory , and fled across the sea , a phantom body pulsing with a veined fire like that stirred from the nocturnal bay . He again consulted his watch , and said aloud , incredulously : `` Five minutes past eight . '' The inchoate crawling of his thoughts changed to an acute , tangible doubt , a mounting dread . He rehearsed the details of his plan , tried it at every turning . It had seemed to him at the moment of its birth the best -- no , the only -- thing to do , and it was still without obvious fault .