two in
the morning
The next morning , on coming downstairs , Marguerite learned from Lemulquinier that Monsieur Claes had gone out . This simple announcement turned her pale ; her face was so painfully significant that the old valet remarked hastily : -- `` Do n't be troubled , mademoiselle ; monsieur said he would be back at eleven o'clock to breakfast . He did n't go to bed all night . At two in the morning he was still standing in the parlor , looking through the window at the laboratory . I was waiting up in the kitchen ; I saw him ; he wept ; he is in trouble . Here 's the famous month of July when the sun is able to enrich us all , and if you only would -- '' `` Enough , '' said Marguerite , divining the thoughts that must have assailed her father 's mind . A phenomenon which often takes possession of persons leading sedentary lives had seized upon Balthazar ; his life depended , so to speak , on the places with which it was identified ; his thought was so wedded to his laboratory and to the house he lived in that both were indispensable to him , -- just as the Bourse becomes a necessity to a stock-gambler , to whom the public holidays are so much lost time .