eight o’clock
Once in the street , the pressure ceasing , he came to a halt , and the cool night air speedily restored him to the possession of his faculties . He was surprised to find that his head ached violently , and that he remembered not one word of the two acts which he had witnessed . As the excitement wore away , it was succeeded by an overweening appetite for sleep , and he hailed a cab and drove to his lodging in a state of extreme exhaustion and some disgust of life . Next morning he lay in wait for Miss Vandeleur on her road to market , and by eight o'clock beheld her stepping down a lane . She was simply , and even poorly , attired ; but in the carriage of her head and body there was something flexible and noble that would have lent distinction to the meanest toilette . Even her basket , so aptly did she carry it , became her like an ornament . It seemed to Francis , as he slipped into a doorway , that the sunshine followed and the shadows fled before her as she walked ; and he was conscious , for the first time , of a bird singing in a cage above the lane .