five o'clock
Janet , with a sense of discouragement for which she rebuked herself as childish , walked sadly home again ; and when she entered the vacant dining-room , she could not help bursting into tears . It is such vague undefinable states of susceptibility as this -- states of excitement or depression , half mental , half physical -- that determine many a tragedy in women 's lives . Janet could scarcely eat anything at her solitary dinner : she tried to fix her attention on a book in vain ; she walked about the garden , and felt the very sunshine melancholy . Between four and five o'clock , old Mr. Pittman called , and joined her in the garden , where she had been sitting for some time under one of the great apple-trees , thinking how Robert , in his best moods , used to take little Mamsey to look at the cucumbers , or to see the Alderney cow with its calf in the paddock . The tears and sobs had come again at these thoughts ; and when Mr. Pittman approached her , she was feeling languid and exhausted . But the old gentleman 's sight and sensibility were obtuse , and , to Janet 's satisfaction , he showed no consciousness that she was in grief . ` I have a task to impose upon you , Mrs. Dempster , ' he said , with a certain toothless pomposity habitual to him : ` I want you to look over those letters again in Dempster 's bureau , and see if you can find one from Poole about the mortgage on those houses at Dingley .