one
o'clock
Roma wished to close them , but dared not try , and the image of inanimate objects standing in the light was mirrored in their dull and glassy surface . The dog in the distance was still barking , and a company of tipsy revellers were passing through the piazza singing a drinking song with a laugh in it . When they were gone the clocks outside began to strike . It was one o'clock , and the hour seemed to dance over the city in single steps . Roma 's terror became unbearable . Feeling herself to be a murderer , she acted on a murderer 's impulse and prepared to fly . When she recalled the emotions with which she had determined to kill the Baron and then deliver herself up to justice , they seemed so remote that they might have existed only in a dream or belonged to another existence .