three o'clock in the afternoon
`` Why did you not bring me back ? It remained for Pere Bontemps to tell me everything . But I am here ! '' It was three o'clock in the afternoon . Great black clouds , the trail of some neighboring storm , had slowly filled the sky . The yellow heavens , the brass covered uniforms , had changed the valley of Rocreuse , so gay in the sunlight , into a den of cutthroats full of sinister gloom . The Prussian officer had contented himself with causing Dominique to be imprisoned without announcing what fate he reserved for him .