eight o'clock
He stood up at the bedside , and looked on her steadfastly , with the same melancholy expression . For a moment he stooped over her , as if about to kiss her face , but checked himself , stood erect again at the bedside , then suddenly turned ; the curtain fell back into its place , and she saw him no more . With a strange mixture of sweet and bitter feelings this vision rested upon the memory of Mrs. Marston , until , gradually , deep slumber again overcame her senses , and the incident and all its attendant circumstances faded into oblivion . It was past eight o'clock when Mrs. Marston awoke next morning . The sun was shining richly and cheerily in at the windows ; and as the remembrance of Marston 's visit to her chamber , and the unwonted manifestations of tenderness and compunction which accompanied it , returned , she felt something like hope and happiness , to which she had long been a stranger , flutter her heart . The pleasing reverie to which she was yielding was , however , interrupted . The sound of stifled sobbing in the room reached her ear , and , pushing back the bed-curtains , and leaning forward to look , she saw her maid , Willett , sitting with her back to the wall , crying bitterly , and striving , as it seemed , to stifle her sobs with her apron , which was wrapped about her face .