eight o'clock
She dwelt on the remembrance of the hills and the tramp with strange persistency , and yet no more now than before did she attempt to come to conclusions with her thought ; it was vague , she would not define it ; she brooded over it sullenly and obtusely . Sometimes her thoughts slipped away from it , but with each returning a fresh stage was marked in the progress of her nervous despair . And so the hours went by . At eight o'clock the maid knocked at the door . Kitty opened it mechanically , and she fell into the woman 's arms , weeping , sobbing . The sight of the female face brought relief ; it interrupted the jarred and strained sense of the horrible ; the secret affinities of sex quickened within her . The woman 's presence filled Kitty with the feelings that the harmlessness of a lamb or a soft bird inspires .