about ten o'clock
in the morning
We have some commissions to give you . '' `` I will not fail you . '' Don César noticed that two young men had just turned the corner and were coming toward them ; thereupon , without saying farewell , he left the women , crossing to the opposite sidewalk . A few days later Ricardo set forth from home as usual about ten o'clock in the morning and turned his steps toward the house of his betrothed . It was not love alone that impelled him to walk the street so early , but as much the melancholy solitude that reigned at the present time in the vast seignorial mansion where he lived : for our hero had been alone in the world a little more than a year . His father , the old Marqués de Peñalta , had died when he was under six , and he had scarcely more than a vague remembrance of his pale face between the sheets of the bed when they raised him up to give him a kiss a few hours before he died . He remembered also how on that same day every one had hugged him and kissed him , with tears , and this had attracted his attention and made him ask , `` Why are you all crying to-day ? ''