ten o'clock at night
But as her glance went first to the dead brother and then to the living one she knew that her substitute for love had been found . When Jasper Fay was tried for the murder of Claude Masterman , and acquitted of the charge , it was generally felt that the ends of justice had been served . No human being , whatever his secret opinion , could have desired the further punishment of that little old man whose sufferings might have expiated any possible crime in advance . The jury having found it improbable that at his age , and with his infirmities , he should have been lurking in the village at ten o'clock at night and waiting in the neighborhood of Colcord jail at dawn of the next morning , the verdict was accepted with relief not only in the little court-house of the county town , but by the outside public . To none was this absolution more nearly of the nature of a joy than to the unfortunate young man 's family . * * * * * That was in the winter of 1912 , and in the mean while Lois had been led so successfully by her substitute for love as to be at times unaware of her lack of the divine original . For she was busy , so it seemed to her , every day of every week and every minute of every day .