nine
o'clock in the evening
`` I 've ceased to believe in _ his _ fairness , '' he told her promptly . `` I believe that what he thinks is n't fit to print and he 's trying to drive you , whether or no , into vindicating his rotten implications . '' A piece of chinaware slipped from his hands and crashed on the floor and so tense were the woman 's nerves that a low scream escaped her lips . The mail wagon passed the tin box down by the edge of the pine thicket twice a day and the latest of these visits was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening . The household duties were finished before that and the three were sitting on the terrace with a world of silver light and cobalt shadows about them . That is to say , two of them sat there in silence while the third came and went about his duties of changing records and needles and the winding of the machine -- for he still dedicated himself to minstrelsy . And in Conscience the germ of an idea which seemed trivial and foolish was beginning to grow into a sort of obsession .