about ten o’clock at night
The absolute doubt which Descartes demands can no more exist in the brain of a man than a vacuum can exist in nature , and the mental operation required to produce it would , like the effect of a pneumatic machine , be exceptional and anomalous . Whatever a case may be , the mind believes in something . Now Marthe was so afraid that the accused were guilty that her fear became equivalent to belief ; and this condition of her mind proved fatal to her . Five days after the arrests , just as she was in the act of going to bed about ten o'clock at night , she was called from the courtyard by her mother , who had come from the farm on foot . `` A laboring man from Troyes wants to speak to you ; he is sent by Michu , and is waiting in the covered way , '' she said to Marthe . They passed through the breach so as to take the shortest path . In the darkness it was impossible for Marthe to distinguish anything more than the form of a person which loomed through the shadows .