seven o'clock
He had lacked the courage to remain at Falaise , and already was regretting that he had left it , declaring that if the Prussians burned his house it would ruin him . His daughter , a tall , pale young woman , wept copiously . But Maurice was like a dead man for want of sleep , and had no ears for the farmer 's lamentations ; he slumbered peacefully , soothed by the easy motion of the vehicle , which the little horse trundled over the ground at such a good round pace that it took them less than an hour and a half to accomplish the four leagues between Vouziers and Chene . It was not quite seven o'clock and scarcely beginning to be dark when the young man rubbed his eyes and alighted in a rather dazed condition on the public square , near the bridge over the canal , in front of the modest house where he was born and had passed twenty years of his life . He got down there in obedience to an involuntary impulse , although the house had been sold eighteen months before to a veterinary surgeon , and in reply to the farmer 's questions said that he knew quite well where he was going , adding that he was a thousand times obliged to him for his kindness . He continued to stand stock-still , however , beside the well in the middle of the little triangular _ place _ ; he was as if stunned ; his memory was a blank . Where had he intended to go ?