eight o'clock
He had nothing to say to her . It was as if he had known that it would happen , and that it would happen like this , that he would come home at this hour and find his mother standing at the head of the stairs , and that she would tell him these things in these words . He even had the feeling that he ought to have told _ her _ , to have warned her that it would be so . On Wednesday evening , at eight o'clock , when Ransome should have been in the lawyer 's room at the Polytechnic , he was standing by his father 's bed . Mr. Ransome had partially recovered consciousness , and he lay supported by his son 's arms in preference to his own bed . For his bed had become odious to him , sinking under him , falling from him treacherously as he sank and fell , whereas Ranny 's muscles adjusted themselves to all his sinkings and fallings . They remained and could be felt in the disintegration that presently separated them from the rest of Ranny , Ranny 's arms being there , close under him , and Ranny 's face a long way off at the other end of the room .