nearly ten o'clock
Three years passed and six months . The Cartarets had been in Garthdale nine years . Gwenda Cartaret sat in the dining-room at the Vicarage alone with her father . It was nearly ten o'clock of the March evening . They waited for the striking of the clock . It would be prayer time then , and after prayers the Vicar would drag himself upstairs to bed , and in the peace that slid into the room when he left it Gwenda would go on with her reading . She had her sewing in her lap and her book , Bergson 's _ Évolution créatrice _ propped open before her on the table .