twenty minutes before six
-- at six to take a morning walk with me . I will be here at that hour . You do n't know how disturbed and anxious I shall be till then . '' Morning came -- or rather the long night came to an end at last -- and at twenty minutes before six I opened the gate at the Sloman cottage . It was so late in September that the morning was a little hazy and uncertain . And yet the air was warm and soft -- a perfect reflex , I thought , of Bessie last night -- an electric softness under a brooding cloud . The little house lay wrapped in slumber .