eight o'clock
They meet , and touch hands , and part again , and never guess the mystery of the future , which wraps them round like a cloud , never say of each other . There is my fate ; and then they meet again , and again , as hazard wills , and never know that they are drifting to their doom . ' Mary rang bells and gave orders , just as she had done in that summer gloaming a year ago . The young men had arrived just at the same hour , on the stroke of nine , when the eight o'clock dinner was over and done with ; for a _ tête-à-tête _ meal with Fräulein Müller was not a feast to be prolonged on account of its felicity . Perhaps they had so contrived as to arrive exactly at this hour . Lady Maulevrier received them both with extreme cordiality . But the young men saw a change for the worse in the invalid since the spring .