ten o'clock in the
morning
Then it was , above all , that she felt how _ she _ had understood friendship , and how never again to see the face of the creature she had taken to her soul would be for her as the stroke of blindness . The twilight had become thick by the time she reached Marmion and paused for an instant in front of her house , over which the elms that stood on the grassy wayside appeared to her to hang a blacker curtain than ever before . There was no candle in any window , and when she pushed in and stood in the hall , listening a moment , her step awakened no answering sound . Her heart failed her ; Verena 's staying out in a boat from ten o'clock in the morning till nightfall was too unnatural , and she gave a cry , as she rushed into the low , dim parlour -LRB- darkened on one side , at that hour , by the wide-armed foliage , and on the other by the veranda and trellis -RRB- , which expressed only a wild personal passion , a desire to take her friend in her arms again on any terms , even the most cruel to herself . The next moment she started back , with another and a different exclamation , for Verena was in the room , motionless , in a corner -- the first place in which she had seated herself on re-entering the house -- looking at her with a silent face which seemed strange , unnatural , in the dusk . Olive stopped short , and for a minute the two women remained as they were , gazing at each other in the dimness . After that , too , Olive still said nothing ; she only went to Verena and sat down beside her .