ten o'clock in the morning
`` Devil take the children ! '' said he , while riding in a post-chaise toward the Avricourt station . `` If I have a son , I wish he may find me ! '' On the fifth of September , at ten o'clock in the morning , Leon Renault , emaciated , dejected and scarcely recognizable , was at the feet of Clementine Sambucco in her aunt 's parlor . There were flowers on the mantel and flowers in all the vases . Two great burglar sunbeams broke through the open windows . A million of little bluish atoms were playing in the light , crossing each other and getting fantastically mixed up , like the ideas in a volume of M. Alfred Houssaye .