four o'clock in the morning
It was then -- then -- that he had sinned against her . He had not meant -- he had not meant to love her -- like that . And yet he perceived how all along , unremittently , imperceptibly , this passion had waylaid him and misled him and found him out . It was it that had drawn him every morning across the fields to Court House , that upheld him on his giddy perch on the library steps , that chained him to his chair at the library table and kept him sweating over that abominable catalogue till four o'clock in the morning . It had looked at him with so pure and spiritual a face that he had not recognized it . But how otherwise could he have stayed here for three weeks , fooling with that unlucky conscience of his ; persuading it one minute that he had nothing to do with Miss Harden , and that her father 's affairs were no business of his , the next that they were so much his business that he was bound not to betray them ; while as for Miss Harden , he had so much to do with her that it was his duty to stay where he was and protect her ? He had had absolutely no duty in the matter except to tell her the truth and clear out .