three
o’clock
What would he have done , what would have become of him , good God ! Already he was filled with an immense joy and a wild terror . But she looked at him with the discreet and affectionate smile which never now left her lips , and she answered with a submissive air : `` As you please , master . Send him word to be here to-morrow at three o'clock . '' Pascal spent so dreadful a night that he rose late , saying , as an excuse , that he had one of his old headaches . He found relief only under the icy deluge of the shower bath . At ten o'clock he left the house , saying he would go himself to see Ramond ; but he had another object in going out -- he had seen at a show in Plassans a corsage of old point d'Alencon ; a marvel of beauty which lay there awaiting some lover 's generous folly , and the thought had come to him in the midst of the tortures of the night , to make a present of it to Clotilde , to adorn her wedding gown .