About four o'clock in the morning
If she had been thrown with him in the desperate mood of the moment , she would have lost her self-control . Happily , fate had taken him away for a few hours ; and who could tell what might not happen in a few hours ? Meanwhile , there was humanity 's work to be done . About four o'clock in the morning , when she came out from a cottage where she had assisted Mr. Mappin in a painful and dangerous operation , she stood for a moment in reverie , looking up at the hills , whose peace had been shrilly broken a few hours before by that distracted waif of the world , fleeing from the pain of life . An ample star of rare brilliancy came stealing up over the trees against the sky-line , twinkling and brimming with light . `` No , '' she said , as though in reply to an inner voice , `` there 's nothing for me -- nothing . I have missed it all . ''