four o’clock in the afternoon
etc. '' I dropped the letter and sat motionless for a long time . Then I wrote my answer -LRB- it was a short one -RRB- and went ashore myself to post it . But I passed one letter-box , then another , and in the end found myself going up Collins Street with the letter still in my pocket -- against my heart . Collins Street at four o'clock in the afternoon is not exactly a desert solitude ; but I had never felt more isolated from the rest of mankind as when I walked that day its crowded pavement , battling desperately with my thoughts and feeling already vanquished . There came a moment when the awful tenacity of Jacobus , the man of one passion and of one idea , appeared to me almost heroic . He had not given me up . He had gone again to his odious brother .