nearly one o'clock in the morning before
Though he was almost a stranger here now , passing cottagers talked to him over the garden hedge . `` Burning up your awld aunt 's rubbidge , I suppose ? Ay ; a lot gets heaped up in nooks and corners when you 've lived eighty years in one house . '' It was nearly one o'clock in the morning before the leaves , covers , and binding of Jeremy Taylor , Butler , Doddridge , Paley , Pusey , Newman and the rest had gone to ashes , but the night was quiet , and as he turned and turned the paper shreds with the fork , the sense of being no longer a hypocrite to himself afforded his mind a relief which gave him calm . He might go on believing as before , but he professed nothing , and no longer owned and exhibited engines of faith which , as their proprietor , he might naturally be supposed to exercise on himself first of all . In his passion for Sue he could not stand as an ordinary sinner , and not as a whited sepulchre . Meanwhile Sue , after parting from him earlier in the day , had gone along to the station , with tears in her eyes for having run back and let him kiss her .