ten o'clock
Had there been the least -- even the smallest redeeming honesty in the situation he felt that he might have faced it , if not with positive sympathy yet with a tolerant , a merciful comprehension . Love he might have understood -- for women needed it , he knew , and he was burdened by no delusion concerning the place he occupied in Connie 's horizon . But before the breathless chase of excitement in which she lived , the frenzied invocation of pleasure that filled her thoughts , he found himself groping blindly for some meaning which would explain the thing it could not justify . The hours dragged so heavily that by ten o'clock he put on his overcoat and snow-shoes and went out again into the street . He was possessed at the moment by a growing fear of missing Connie , and as he walked toward the opera house he had sense of a premonition almost occult in power that the terrible destiny which had her in its clutch was gathering energy for some pitiless catastrophe . With characteristic patience he searched his own conscience , the incidents of his daily life , and held himself rather than his wife to account . After all , he was the stronger of the two , and yet when had he put forth his strength or his pity on her behalf ?