twelve o'clock
Bell longed to send Kester down into Monkshaven as a sort of spy to see how the land lay ; but she dared not manifest her anxiety to her husband , and could not see Kester alone . She wished that she had told him to go to the town , when she had had him to herself in the house-place the night before ; now it seemed as though Daniel were resolved not to part from him , and as though both had forgotten that any peril had been anticipated . Sylvia and her mother , in like manner , clung together , not speaking of their fears , yet each knowing that it was ever present in the other 's mind . So things went on till twelve o'clock -- dinner-time . If at any time that morning they had had the courage to speak together on the thought which was engrossing all their minds , it is possible that some means might have been found to avert the calamity that was coming towards them with swift feet . But among the uneducated -- the partially educated -- nay , even the weakly educated -- the feeling exists which prompted the futile experiment of the well-known ostrich . They imagine that , by closing their own eyes to apprehended evil , they avert it .