seven o’clock
So she has been wailing , poor thing , through her tears for these two days past , ` If I had _ only _ given him a foot-bath , he would be living now ! ' `` M Benassis was hungry ; he made a good dinner . I thought that he was in higher spirits than usual ; we both of us laughed a great deal , I had never seen him laugh so much before . After dinner , towards seven o'clock , a man came with a message from Saint Laurent du Pont ; it was a serious case , and M. Benassis was urgently needed . He said to me , ` I shall have to go , though I never care to set out on horseback when I have hardly digested my dinner , more especially when it is as cold as this . It is enough to kill a man ! ' `` For all that , he went .