five minutes to nine
`` If it is true , '' said Erica , suddenly , and with seeming irrelevance , `` then sooner or later we must learn it to be so . Truth MUST win in the end . But it is worse to wait for perfect certainty than for books at the museum , '' she added , laughing . `` It is five minutes to nine I shall be late . '' Charles Osmond walked home thoughtfully ; the meeting had somehow cheered him . `` Absolute conviction that truth must out that truth must make itself perceptible . I 've not often come across a more beautiful faith than that .