midnight
He visited the plain of Marathon , and strove to imagine the Persian defeat ; to Mars Hill , to picture St. Paul addressing the ancient Athenians ; to Thermopylae and Salamis , to run through the facts and traditions of the Second Invasion -- the result of his endeavours being more or less chaotic . Knight grew as weary of these places as of all others . Then he felt the shock of an earthquake in the Ionian Islands , and went to Venice . Here he shot in gondolas up and down the winding thoroughfare of the Grand Canal , and loitered on calle and piazza at night , when the lagunes were undisturbed by a ripple , and no sound was to be heard but the stroke of the midnight clock . Afterwards he remained for weeks in the museums , galleries , and libraries of Vienna , Berlin , and Paris ; and thence came home . Time thus rolls us on to a February afternoon , divided by fifteen months from the parting of Elfride and her lover in the brown stubble field towards the sea . Two men obviously not Londoners , and with a touch of foreignness in their look , met by accident on one of the gravel walks leading across Hyde Park .