twelve
o'clock
He peered eagerly . There had been no answer to his letter ; it was a month ; he was surprisingly uneasy . But there was nothing in the mail-box , so he swept along to the vestry-room , and got into his cassock and read service to the handful of people in the chapel , with a sense of sick depression which he manfully choked down at every upheaval , but which was distinctly there quite the same . Service over , there were things to be done for three hours ; also there was to be a meeting in his rooms at twelve o'clock to consider the establishment of a new mission , his special interest , in the rough country at the west of the city ; the rector and the bishop and two others were coming . He hurried home and up to his place , at eleven-forty-five , and gave a hasty look about to see if things were fairly proper for august people . Not that the bishop would notice . He dusted off the library table with his handkerchief , put one book discreetly on the back side of the table instead of in front , swept an untidy box of cigarettes into a drawer , and gathered up the fresh pile of wash from a chair and put it on the bed in his sleeping-room and shut the door hard .