midnight
`` Good-night . '' And then Peter had walked home , thinking of Hilda . And he had sat by the sea , and come to the conclusion that he was a rotter , but in the web of Fate and much to be pitied , which is like a man . And then he had played auction till midnight and lost ten francs , and gone to bed concluding that he was certainly unlucky -- at cards . As Peter sat in his car at the Harfleur terminus that Thursday it must be confessed that he was largely indifferent to the beauties of the Seine Valley that he had professedly come to see . He was nervous , to begin with , lest he should be recognised by anyone , and he was in one of his troubled moods . But he had not long to wait .