midnight
How could this fact be best concealed , and concealed for ever ? To the unspoken question came swift answer . It flashed on the man lingering on the solitary river-side quay , that even now , to-night , it was not too late for him to establish the most effectual of alibis . By taking a fiacre and bribing the man to drive quickly he could be back in his rooms in the Rue de Rivoli , dressed , and at his club , before midnight . Fool that he was to have wasted even a quarter of an hour ! Vanderlyn struck sharply across the dimly-lighted thoroughfare ; he started walking down one of the narrow streets which connect the river quays with commercial Paris . A few moments later , having picked up a cab , he was driving rapidly westward , down the broad , still seething Boulevard du Temple , and , as he suddenly became aware with a sharp pang at his heart , past the entrance to the quiet mediæval square , where , only four short days ago , he and Peggy walking side by side , had held the conversation which was to prove pregnant of so much short-lived joy , and of such long-lived pain .