six o'clock in the morning
I remain your ladyship 's most humble and most obedient servant , PERCY BLAKENEY . '' -LSB- BLANK LINE BELOW -RSB- Marguerite must suddenly have been imbued with her husband 's slowness of intellect , for she had perforce to read the few simple lines over and over again , before she could fully grasp their meaning . She stood on the landing , turning over and over in her hand this curt and mysterious epistle , her mind a blank , her nerves strained with agitation and a presentiment she could not very well have explained . Sir Percy owned considerable property in the North , certainly , and he had often before gone there alone and stayed away a week at a time ; but it seemed so very strange that circumstances should have arisen between five and six o'clock in the morning that compelled him to start in this extreme hurry . Vainly she tried to shake off an unaccustomed feeling of nervousness : she was trembling from head to foot . A wild , unconquerable desire seized her to see her husband again , at once , if only he had not already started . Forgetting the fact that she was only very lightly clad in a morning wrap , and that her hair lay loosely about her shoulders , she flew down the stairs , right through the hall towards the front door .