noon
To that I clung as the drowning man to his last plank . When Kingsley and Edgerton first left me , I had resolved to waste the hours in the woods and not to return home until after my final meeting in the afternoon with the latter . It might be that I should not return home then , and in such an event I was not unwilling that my wife should still live , the miserable thing which she had made herself . But , with the still fond hope that she might speak , and speak in season , I now resolved to return at the usual dinner hour ; and , timing myself accordingly , I prolonged my wanderings through the woods until noon . I then set forward , and reached the cottage a little sooner than I had expected . I found Julia in bed . She complained of headache and fever .