five o'clock
There was one person , however , who , whether or not he believed the truth of their story , at least accepted it with extreme seriousness . And it was to him that Polly O'Neill made a determined effort to be the first narrator of their experience . Anthony Graham was in the habit of getting up earlier than any one else in the Ashton house and had of course disappeared hours before either of the girls awakened the morning after their nearly sleepless night . However , he was accustomed to returning to his small room in the third story at about half-past five o'clock every afternoon , when his work for the day was over , in order to change his clothes for the evening . So at about this time Polly found it convenient to be in the hallway leading to his room and to be there alone . As he walked toward her unconscious of her presence , in spite of her prejudice against him she could not fail to see how much the young man had improved . He was hardly recognizable as the boy with whom they had had the encounter in the woods a little more than a year before .