three o'clock
`` No , Brimberly -- I 'm going to try and find one for myself . '' `` Ho -- very good , sir ! '' `` And now , '' said the new Mr. Ravenslee , laying one white , ringless hand on Spike 's shoulder and pointing toward the open door with the other , `` lead on -- young Destiny ! '' It was past three o'clock and dawn was at hand as , by devious ways , Spike piloted his companion through that section of New York City which is known to the initiated as `` Hell 's Kitchen . '' By dismal streets they went , past silent , squalid houses and tall tenements looming grim and ghostly in the faint light ; crossing broad avenues very silent and deserted at this hour , on and on until , dark and vague and mysterious , the great river flowed before them only to be lost again as they plunged into a gloomy court where tall buildings rose on every hand , huge and very silent , teeming with life -- but life just now wrapped in that profound quietude of sleep which is so much akin to death . Into one of these tall tenement buildings , its ugliness rendered more ugly by the network of iron fire-escape ladders that writhed up the face of it , Spike led the way , first into a dark hallway and thence up many stairs that echoed to their light-treading feet -- on and up , past dimly lit landings where were doors each of which shut in its own little world , a world distinct and separate wherein youth and age , good and evil , joy and misery , lived and moved and had their being ; behind these dingy panels were smiling hope and black despair , blooming health and pallid sickness , and all those sins and virtues that go to make up the sum total of humanity . Something of all this was in Geoffrey Ravenslee 's mind as he climbed the dingy , interminable stair behind Spike , who presently halted to get his wind and whisper : `` It ai n't much further now , Geoff , only another two flights and -- '' He stopped suddenly to listen , and from the landing above a sound reached them , a sound soft but unmistakable -- a woman 's muffled sobbing .