about half past
nine
He turned his back upon Eyre Street Hill and walked down Leather Lane into Holborn . Each step he took , each face or object that he knew , helped at once to link him on to the life he had led before his imprisonment , and at the same time to make him feel how completely that imprisonment had cut his life into two parts , the one of which could bear no resemblance to the other . He passed down Fetter Lane into Fleet Street and so to the Temple , to which I had just returned from my summer holiday . It was about half past nine , and I was having my breakfast , when I heard a timid knock at the door and opened it to find Ernest . I had begun to like him on the night Towneley had sent for me , and on the following day I thought he had shaped well . I had liked him also during our interview in prison , and wanted to see more of him , so that I might make up my mind about him . I had lived long enough to know that some men who do great things in the end are not very wise when they are young ; knowing that he would leave prison on the 30th , I had expected him , and , as I had a spare bedroom , pressed him to stay with me , till he could make up his mind what he would do .