nine o'clock
`` Will you deliver into his hand the note I am writing ? '' `` I certainly will . '' `` How soon ? '' `` Before nine o'clock to-night . '' `` Thank you -- a thousand times . '' After a while she folded a sheet containing these words : `` DEAR DR. GRANTLIN : `` In the extremity of my distress , I appeal to you as a Christian gentleman , as a true physician , a healer of the suffering , and under God , the guardian of my mother 's life . You know why I went to my grandfather .