ten o’clock
This explained the scattering of the family : the mother over yonder with her maid ; the grandfather in Paris , where he had resumed his great building enterprises , battling amid his four hundred workmen , and crushing the idle and the incapable beneath his contempt ; and the father in exile at La Richaudiere , set to watch over his son and daughter , shut up there , after the very first struggle , as if it had broken him down for life . In a moment of effusion Dubuche had even let Sandoz understand that as his wife was so extremely delicate he now lived with her merely on friendly terms . ` A nice marriage , ' said Sandoz , simply , by way of conclusion . It was ten o'clock when the two friends rang at the iron gate of La Richaudiere . The estate , with which they were not acquainted , amazed them . There was a superb park , a garden laid out in the French style , with balustrades and steps spreading away in regal fashion ; three huge conservatories and a colossal cascade -- quite a piece of folly , with its rocks brought from afar , and the quantity of cement and the number of conduits that had been employed in arranging it . Indeed , the owner had sunk a fortune in it , out of sheer vanity .