five o’clock
It reached him just four hours before the dinner-time . He was plainly to be used as a stop-gap at the last moment because somebody could not come . Having previously arranged to pass a quiet evening in his rooms at the Lord Quantock Arms , in reading up chronicles of the castle from the county history , with the view of gathering some ideas as to the distribution of rooms therein before the demolition of a portion of the structure , he decided off-hand that Paula 's dinner was not of sufficient importance to him as a professional man and student of art to justify a waste of the evening by going . He accordingly declined Mrs. Goodman 's and Miss Power 's invitation ; and at five o'clock left the castle and walked across the fields to the little town . He dined early , and , clearing away heaviness with a cup of coffee , applied himself to that volume of the county history which contained the record of Stancy Castle . Here he read that ` when this picturesque and ancient structure was founded , or by whom , is extremely uncertain . But that a castle stood on the site in very early times appears from many old books of charters .