eleven o'clock
The train came in , and Northwick went out and got aboard . The president of the Board , who had called Northwick a thief , and yet had got him a chance to make himself an honest man , was awake at the hour the defaulter absconded , after passing quite as sleepless a night . He had kept a dinner engagement , hoping to forget Northwick , but he seemed to be eating and drinking him at every course . When he came home toward eleven o'clock , he went to his library and sat down before the fire . His wife had gone to bed , and his son and daughter were at a ball ; and he sat there alone , smoking impatiently . He told the man who looked in to see if he wanted anything that he might go to bed ; he need not sit up for the young people . Hilary had that kind of consideration for servants , and he liked to practise it ; he liked to realize that he was practising it now , in a moment when every habit of his life might very well yield to the great and varying anxieties which beset him .