six in the evening
He ceased . He also was gazing at the lighted window over in the notary 's house . Then he went on in a low voice , as if talking to himself , with an expression on his face of reflective curiosity : `` I wonder what they had to say to each other ? It strikes one as a rather peculiar proceeding , all the same , to run away from a threatened danger at six in the evening , and at midnight , when nothing has occurred to alter the situation , to rush headlong into the very self-same danger . '' Below them in the street Maurice still heard the gun-carriages rumbling and rattling over the stones of the little sleeping city , that ceaseless tramp of horse and man , that uninterrupted tide of humanity , pouring onward toward the Meuse , toward the unknown , terrible fate that the morrow had in store for them . And still upon the mean , cheap curtains of that bourgeois dwelling he beheld the shadow of the Emperor passing and repassing at regular intervals , the restless activity of the sick man , to whom his cares made sleep impossible , whose sole repose was motion , in whose ears was ever ringing that tramp of horses and men whom he was suffering to be sent forward to their death . A few brief hours , then , had sufficed ; the slaughter was decided on ; it was to be .