eight o'clock
No wonder , then , that the steps took the same course on this evening , eleven days later , when he had had to recoil under Romola 's first outburst of scorn . He could not wish Tessa in his wife 's place , or refrain from wishing that his wife should be thoroughly reconciled to him ; for it was Romola , and not Tessa , that belonged to the world where all the larger desires of a man who had ambition and effective faculties must necessarily lie . But he wanted a refuge from a standard disagreeably rigorous , of which he could not make himself independent simply by thinking it folly ; and Tessa 's little soul was that inviting refuge . It was not much more than eight o'clock when he went up the stone steps to the door of Tessa 's room . Usually she heard his entrance into the house , and ran to meet him , but not to-night ; and when he opened the door he saw the reason . A single dim light was burning above the dying fire , and showed Tessa in a kneeling attitude by the head of the bed where the baby lay . Her head had fallen aside on the pillow , and her brown rosary , which usually hung above the pillow over the picture of the Madonna and the golden palm-branches , lay in the loose grasp of her right-hand .