About nine o'clock
It was then four o'clock , and when she had travelled a mile further she found a nook under the wall of a little bridge , and there she seated herself , and ate her dinner of bread and cheese . While she was there a policeman on foot passed along the road . The man did not see her , and had he seen her would have taken no more than a policeman 's ordinary notice of her ; but she saw him , and in consequence did not leave her hiding-place for hours . About nine o'clock she crept on again , but even then her mind was not made up . She did not even yet know where she would bestow herself for that night . It seemed to her that there would be an inexpressible pleasure to her , even in her misery , in walking round the precincts of the mill , in gazing at the windows of the house , in standing on the bridge where she had so often loitered , and in looking once more on the scene of her childhood . But , as she thought of this , she remembered the darkness of the stream , and the softly-gurgling but rapid flow with which it hurried itself on beneath the black abyss of the building .