six
o'clock
* * * * * Marcella was awake early next morning , listening to the full voice of the sea as it broke three hundred feet below , against the beach and rocky walls of the little town . She was lying in a tiny white room , one of the cells of the old monastery , and the sun as it rose above the Salernian mountains -- the mountains that hold Paestum in their blue and purple shadows -- danced in gold on the white wall . The bell of the cathedral far below tolled the hour . She supposed it must be six o'clock . Two hours more or so , and Lord Maxwell 's letter might be looked for . She lay and thought of it -- longed for it , and for the time of answering it , with the same soreness that had marked all the dreams of a restless night . If she could only see her father 's letter !