about four o'clock
`` Thus encouraged , I shall be gone instantly . Take care of Helen , mother , till I come back . '' And with these words he departed , leaving the two ladies leisure and inclination to discuss at length the many singular caprices of which Sir Gilbert had been lately guilty . At about four o'clock Colonel Harrington returned ; but his report tended rather to thicken than to elucidate the mystery . He had , without being remarked himself , seen his father walking up and down the town apparently in a state of the most perfect idleness ; and then the Cartwright carriage drove by the shop in which he had fixed his look-out . Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright were both in it . It stopped at the next door , which was that of the haberdasher , and they entered the shop together .