eleven o’clock at night
Our emotions were so great that for a time we did not notice it was raining heavily . `` Will Madame la comtesse wait here under shelter ? '' asked the coachman , pointing to the chief inn of Ballan . She made a sign of assent , and we stayed nearly half an hour under the vaulted entrance , to the great surprise of the inn-people who wondered what brought Madame de Mortsauf on that road at eleven o'clock at night . Was she going to Tours ? Had she come from there ? When the storm ceased and the rain turned to what is called in Touraine a `` brouee , '' which does not hinder the moon from shining through the higher mists as the wind with its upper currents whirls them away , the coachman drove from our shelter , and , to my great delight , turned to go back the way we came .