a quarter past eight
At eight o'clock he had come back . Mrs. Maldon was awake , but had apparently no proper recollection of the events of the night , which even to Rachel had begun to seem unreal , like a waning hallucination . The doctor gave orders , with optimism , and left , sufficiently reassured to allow himself to yawn . At a quarter past eight Louis had departed to his own affairs , on Rachel 's direct suggestion . And when Mrs. Tams had been informed of the case so full of disturbing enigmas , while Rachel and she drank tea together in the kitchen , the daily domestic movement of the house was partly resumed , from vanity , because Rachel could not bear to sit idle nor to admit to herself that she had been scared to a standstill . And now Mrs. Maldon , in full possession of her faculties , faced Thomas Batchgrew for the interview which she had insisted on having . And Rachel waited with an uncanny apprehension , her ears full of the mysterious and frightful phrase , `` I 've lost all that money . ''