midnight before
Told him to ! '' Which he did , at about ten o'clock . But Fenwick had never called at Iggulden 's , neither had he come back to his own home . It was after midnight before his foot was on the stairs , and Sally had retired for the night , telling her mother not to fidget -- Jeremiah would be all right . At eleven o'clock that night a respectable man with weak eyes and a cold was communing with a commanding Presence that lived in a bureau -- nothing less ! -- in the entrance-hall of the big hotel at the new St. Sennans . It was that of a matron with jet earrings and tube-curls and a tortoise-shell comb , and an educated contempt for her species .