four o'clock
`` There is a certain medicine called prayer , Mr. Thurnall -- an old specific for the heart-ache , as you will find one day -- which I have been neglecting much of late , and which I must return to in earnest before midnight . Good-bye , God bless and keep you ! '' And the Major retired to his bed-room , and did not stir off his knees for two full hours . After which he went to Pennington 's , and thence somewhere else ; and Tom met him at four o'clock that morning musing amid unspeakable horrors , quiet , genial , almost cheerful . `` You are a man , '' said Tom to himself ; `` and I fancy at times something more than a man ; more than me at least . '' Tom was right in his fear that after excitement would come collapse ; but wrong as to the person to whom it would come . When he arrived at the surgery door , Headley stood waiting for him .