four o'clock
Peter was quiet that evening , and was gone the next morning when the sisters came out to breakfast . His absence was a real relief to Cherry , who felt curiously tired and spent after a wakeful night , and looked pale . Alix , busy with a new venture in duck raising , noticed nothing , and Cherry could lie idly in the hammock all morning , sometimes frowning , and shutting her eyes at some sudden thought , otherwise smiling and dreaming vaguely , and always hearing Peter 's voice , in words so charged with new magic that the mere recollection of them almost suffocated her with emotion . He had left a message to the effect that he would not be at home that night , and at four o'clock telephoned confirming the message . Alix chanced to answer the telephone , and Cherry , who was in her room , heard Peter 's name , and stood still , listening with a shock of disappointment . She did not want him to come home , she was hardly conscious of any desire or dread ; her only thought was that he was there -- now -- at the telephone , and in a moment Alix would have hung up the receiver , and she , Cherry , would not have spoken to him , would not have heard his voice ! But at eight o'clock that evening , when she and Alix were sitting on the porch , when the last ebbing pink of the sunset had faded , and great spiders had ventured forth into the dusk and the dews , there was a sudden hail at the gate , and Cherry knew that it was he !