nine o'clock
A man knows the voice of his love above all . The voice that I had heard in that adjoining room was , to the best of my belief , that of Ethelwynn . With a resolution to probe this mystery slowly , and without unseemly haste , I dropped the subject , and commenced to ask his advice regarding the complicated case of Lady Twickenham . The history of it , and the directions he gave can serve no purpose if written here ; therefore suffice it to say that I remained to dinner and caught the nine o'clock express back to London . While at dinner , a meal served in that severe style which characterised the austere old man 's daily life , I commenced to talk of the antics of insane persons and their extraordinary antipathies , but quickly discerned that he had neither intention nor desire to speak of them . He replied in those snappy monosyllables which told me plainly that the subject was distasteful to him , and when I bade him good-bye and drove to the station I was more puzzled than ever by his strange behaviour . He was eccentric , it was true ; but I knew all his little odd ways , the eccentricity of genius , and could plainly see that his recent indisposition , which had prevented him from attending at Harley Street , was due to nerves rather than to a chill .