six o’clock in the evening
As the gloom of evening , deepening into night , came on , another dark shade emerging from within him seemed to overspread his face , and slowly change it . Slowly , slowly ; darker and darker ; more and more haggard ; creeping over him by little and little , until it was black night within him and without . The room in which he had shut himself up , was on the ground floor , at the back of the house . It was lighted by a dirty skylight , and had a door in the wall , opening into a narrow covered passage or blind-alley , very little frequented after five or six o'clock in the evening , and not in much use as a thoroughfare at any hour . But it had an outlet in a neighbouring street . The ground on which this chamber stood had , at one time , not within his recollection , been a yard ; and had been converted to its present purpose for use as an office . But the occasion for it died with the man who built it ; and saving that it had sometimes served as an apology for a spare bedroom , and that the old clerk had once held it -LRB- but that was years ago -RRB- as his recognized apartment , it had been little troubled by Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son .