eleven o'clock
That numbness is exactly what I wished to avoid . '' He rose and poured out medicine from another bottle . Van nearly choked in swallowing this . It was eleven o'clock . Sounds of Christmas revelry floated even into his secluded upper room . The bells were telling to the people of the City of the Angels their message of peace on earth , good will toward men ; they were dinning into the ears of the victim of a modern disease the fact that he ought at that moment to be waiting for Dolores on her pious way to Mission Los Angeles . He pictured her with some ancient missal in her slender hands , and flanked on one side by her sympathetic duenna of a mother .