two o'clock after midnight
With one heave of her bosom , and murmuring : ` I made a vow I would obey you absolutely if you came , ' she raised the hat above her brows , and lightning would not have surprised him more ; for there had not been a single vibration of her voice to tell him of tears running : nay , the absence of the usual French formalities in her manner of addressing him , had seemed to him to indicate her intention to put him at once on an easy friendly footing , such as would be natural to her , and not painful to him . Now she said : ` You perceive , monsieur , that I have my sentimental fits like others ; but in truth I am not insensible to the picturesque or to gratitude , and I thank you sincerely for coming , considering that I wrote like a Sphinx -- to evade writing comme une folle ! ' She swept to the bell . Standing in the arch of the entrance , she stretched her whip out to a black mass of prostrate timber , saying : ` It fell in the storm at two o'clock after midnight , and you on the sea ! ' A single day was to be the term of his holiday at Tourdestelle ; but it stood forth as one of those perfect days which are rounded by an evening before and a morning after , giving him two nights under the same roof with Renee , something of a resemblance to three days of her ; anticipation and wonder filling the first , she the next , the adieu the last : every hour filled . And the first day was not over yet . He forced himself to calmness , that he might not fritter it , and walked up and down the room he was dressing in , examining its foreign decorations , and peering through the window , to quiet his nerves .