five o'clock
Hilary Vane was not a man to discuss his domestic affliction with anybody , so he merely grunted and gazed persistently out of the window , and was not aware of the fact that Victoria made a little face at him as she left the room . The young are not always impartial judges of the old , and Victoria had never forgiven him for carrying to her father the news of an escapade of hers in Ripton . As he drove through the silent forest roads on his way homeward that afternoon , the Honourable Hilary revolved the new and intensely disagreeable fact in his mind as to how he should treat a prodigal who had attempted manslaughter and was a fugitive from justice . In the meantime a tall and spare young man of a red-bronze colour alighted from the five o'clock express at Ripton and grinned delightedly at the gentlemen who made the station their headquarters about train time . They were privately disappointed that the gray felt hat , although broad-brimmed , was not a sombrero , and the respectable , loose-fitting suit of clothes was not of buckskin with tassels on the trousers ; and likewise that he came without the cartridge belt and holster which they had pictured in anticipatory sessions on the baggage-trucks . There could be no doubt of the warmth of their greeting as they sidled up and seized a hand somewhat larger than theirs , but the welcome had in it an ingredient of awe that puzzled the newcomer , who did not hesitate to inquire : -- `` What 's the matter , Ed ? Why so ceremonious , Perley ? ''