ten o'clock at night
If Rosalie had any suspicion that Valentine was not the Princess Helen , then there was , I foresaw , a grave and constant danger . And I , for one , did not intend to run any further risk . Her Highness had been in Leghorn just over three weeks , and had become intensely popular everywhere , being invited to the houses of many of the principal residents , when one night an incident occurred which afforded me grave food for reflection . Just after ten o'clock at night I had followed Rosalie along by the sea to Ardenza , where she was sitting alone upon her usual seat in a secluded spot , at the edge of the public garden , on a kind of small promontory that ran in a semicircle out to the sea . Behind her was a dark thicket of azaleas , and in front the calm moonlit Mediterranean . I was standing back in the shadow at a spot where I had often stood before , when , after about five minutes , I saw the tall dark figure of a man in a grey deer-stalker hat join her , and sit down unceremoniously at her side . As soon as they met she began to tell him some long story , to which the stranger listened without comment .