three o'clock
said he ; `` may Heaven bless you and pardon your husband ! '' Then grasping her hand , with what he intended should be a pressure of friendship , but which his internal tortures rendered almost intolerable , he hastened down stairs , opened the outward door , and got into the street . Unknowing and heedless whither he went , with the steps of a man driven by the furies , he traversed one street and then another . As he went along , in vain the watchmen reminded him by their cries that it was past three o'clock : he still wandered on , forgetting that it was night , that he had any home , any destination . His father was discovered ! -- that father of whom he had entertained a latent hope , should they ever meet , that he might produce some excuse for having been betrayed into an act disgraceful to a man of honor . But when all these filial dreams were blasted by the conviction that he owed his being to the husband of Lady Tinemouth , that his mother was the victim of a profligate , that he had sprung from a man who was not merely a villain , but the most wanton , the most despicable of villains , he saw himself bereft of hope and overwhelmed with shame and horror .