twelve o'clock
No , no , he must leave London . The city had done with him -- he had never been so sure of anything in all his life . It was an heroic resolution , and shame that hunger should so maltreat it . When twelve o'clock struck and Alban remembered how poor a breakfast he had made , he did not think it necessary to abandon any of his old habits , at least not immediately ; and he went , as he usually had done , to the shabby dining-room in Union Street where he and Lois had taken their dinners together for many a month past . Boriskoff 's daughter was already at table and waiting for him when he entered ; he thought that she was unusually pale and that her expectancy was not that of a common occasion . Was it possible that she also had news to tell him -- news as momentous as his own ? Alban feared to ask her , and hanging his cap on a peg above their table without a word , he sat down and began to study the greasy menu .