about five o'clock
Formerly she had been convinced that the fire of her spirit was a kind of double flame , one half of which was responsive friendship for a most extraordinary person , and the other pity for the sufferings of women in general . Verena gazed aghast at the colourless dust into which , in three short months -LRB- counting from the episode in New York -RRB- , such a conviction as that could crumble ; she felt it must be a magical touch that could bring about such a cataclysm . Why Basil Ransom had been deputed by fate to exercise this spell was more than she could say -- poor Verena , who up to so lately had flattered herself that she had a wizard 's wand in her own pocket . When she saw him a little way off , about five o'clock -- the hour she usually went out to meet him -- waiting for her at a bend of the road which lost itself , after a winding , straggling mile or two , in the indented , insulated `` point , '' where the wandering bee droned through the hot hours with a vague , misguided flight , she felt that his tall , watching figure , with the low horizon behind , represented well the importance , the towering eminence he had in her mind -- the fact that he was just now , to her vision , the most definite and upright , the most incomparable , object in the world . If he had not been at his post when she expected him she would have had to stop and lean against something , for weakness ; her whole being would have throbbed more painfully than it throbbed at present , though finding him there made her nervous enough . And who was he , what was he ? she asked herself .