nine o'clock
In his own room in the New Willard House he built a fire in the stove and lay down on top of the bed . He began to have lustful thoughts and pulling down the shade of the window closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall . He took a pillow into his arms and embraced it thinking first of the school teacher , who by her words had stirred something within him , and later of Helen White , the slim daughter of the town banker , with whom he had been for a long time half in love . By nine o'clock of that evening snow lay deep in the streets and the weather had become bitter cold . It was difficult to walk about . The stores were dark and the people had crawled away to their houses . The evening train from Cleveland was very late but nobody was interested in its arrival .