ten o'clock at night
All day long her heart had gone out to them in yearnings of prayer and hope and love , and it repaid her a hundred - fold , this hour of happy meeting , with the sunlight of their faces and the music of their voices filling her soul . As soon as supper was over Reginald suggested a precipitate retreat into the streets , for fear of another neighbourly incursion . Mrs Cruden laughingly yielded , and the trio had a long walk , heedless where they went , so long as they were together . They wandered as far as Oxford Street , looking into what shops were open , and interested still more in the ever-changing stream of people who even at ten o'clock at night crowded the pavements . They met no one they knew , not even Booms . But it mattered little to them that no one noticed them . They had one another , and there was a sense of security and comfort in that which before these last few weeks they had never dreamed of .