twenty minutes to twelve
By no effort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had experienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia , but he hoped there was that in his situation which money could cure . He had persuaded himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife by settling on her the half of his property , and with chivalrous devotion towards another and greater woman by sharing her fate , was possible . And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia 's instructions to the letter , to deposit her where she wished and to leave her , should that be her will , the spell that she had cast over him intensified , and his heart was beating fast in the anticipated futility of such commands in the face of a mutual wish that they should throw in their lot together . He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures , maxims , and hopes , and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went softly to the stable , harnessed the horse , and lit the lamps ; whence , taking the horse by the head , he led him with the covered car out of the yard to a spot by the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn . Here Wildeve waited , slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a high bank that had been cast up at this place . Along the surface of the road where lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and clicked together before the wind , which , leaving them in heaps , plunged into the heath and boomed across the bushes into darkness . Only one sound rose above this din of weather , and that was the roaring of a ten-hatch weir to the southward , from a river in the meads which formed the boundary of the heath in this direction .