nine o’clock
Let me speak . Now your father 's dead , I ca n't carry the horrid secret with me into the grave . Just remember , Gabriel -- try if you ca n't remember the time before I was bedridden , ten years ago and more -- it was about six weeks , you know , before your mother 's death ; you can remember it by that . You and all the children were in that room with your mother ; you were asleep , I think ; it was night , not very late -- only nine o'clock . Your father and I were standing at the door , looking out at the heath in the moonlight . He was so poor at that time , he had been obliged to sell his own boat , and none of the neighbors would take him out fishing with them -- your father was n't liked by any of the neighbors . Well ; we saw a stranger coming toward us ; a very young man , with a knapsack on his back .