four o’clock
Strange that in all the years that had been since he had gone back to his abandoned home to find Marcile gone , the world had had no beauty , no lure for him . In the splendour of it all , he had only raged and stormed , hating his fellowman , waiting , however hopelessly , for the day when he should see Marcile and the man who had taken her from him . And yet now , under the degradation of his crime and its penalty , and the unmanning influence of being the helpless victim of the iron power of the law , rigid , ugly and demoralising -- now with the solution of his life 's great problem here before him in the hills , with the man for whom he had waited so long caverned in the earth , but a hand-reach away , as it were , his wrongs had taken a new manifestation in him , and the thing that kept crying out in him every moment was , Where is Marcile ? It was four o'clock when they reached the pass which only Grassette knew , the secret way into the Gulch . There was two hours ' walking through the thick , primeval woods , where few had ever been , except the ancient tribes which had once lorded it here ; then came a sudden drop into the earth , a short travel through a dim cave , and afterward a sheer wall of stone enclosing a ravine where the rocks on either side nearly met overhead . Here Grassette gave the signal to shout aloud , and the voice of the Sheriff called out : `` Hello , Bignold ! `` Hello !