about seven o'clock
But it was clear the increase in my earnings would not as yet permit of any increase in our expenditure upon rent . Sometimes in the Cimmerian intervals immediately preceding one of our fresh starts , my reflections upon such a point were very bitter . There was no sort of doubt that the quality of my work was suffering seriously from lack of a private workshop ... . On the day my second book was published -- the first , while favourably reviewed , had not precisely taken the world by storm ; its successor was my first novel -- I had said that I should not get back to our rooms before about seven o'clock , in time for the evening meal . A dizzy headache , combined with a series of interruptions in the public reading-room where I had been at work , brought me to Camden Town between four and five , determined to take a couple of hours ' rest , to sleep if possible on our bed . It happened that I met our landlady on the steps of the house , and asked her casually if my wife had returned yet . Fanny had said in the morning that she had promised to go and see her mother that day .