nine o'clock in the evening
He would clean and repack the things he was taking , he decided . He would get busy getting ready and not give himself time to think about being afraid . But nightfall seemed a long way off . At nine o'clock in the evening by the Seth Thomas clock in Frank 's printing shop , which he reset every day at sunset , it was dark enough and the town was quiet enough for Auguste to leave . He held Nicole 's ample body tight and kissed her , shook hands with the boys and kissed the girls . His grandfather had drifted off to sleep again , but the old man had kissed him on both cheeks , and they had said their good-byes in the afternoon . The road down the bluff from the town to the bottomland was empty .