ten o’clock
` I will go there to-night , ' she said decisively . ` It is too cold , and altogether too bad , for a woman to wait in the open road on anybody 's account , gentle or simple . ' They went down the park and through the gate , into the village of Carriford . By the time they reached the Three Tranters , it was verging upon ten o'clock . There , on the spot where two months earlier in the season the sunny and lively group of villagers making cider under the trees had greeted Cytherea 's eyes , was nothing now intelligible but a vast cloak of darkness , from which came the low sough of the elms , and the occasional creak of the swinging sign . They went to the door , Mrs. Manston shivering ; but less from the cold , than from the dreariness of her emotions . Neglect is the coldest of winter winds .