about six in the evening
He made no moan , for his strength was all gone , and with it all heart and all hope . The superintendent , in pity , gave up his own comfortable parlor and bedchamber to him and nursed him with affectionate devotion . At the end of a week the patient was able to leave his bed for the first time . He was lying , comfortably pillowed , on a sofa , listening to the plaintive Miserere of the bleak March winds and the muffled sound of tramping feet in the street below for it was about six in the evening , and New York was going home from work . He had a bright fire and the added cheer of a couple of student-lamps . So it was warm and snug within , though bleak and raw without ; it was light and bright within , though outside it was as dark and dreary as if the world had been lit with Hartford gas . Alonzo smiled feebly to think how his loving vagaries had made him a maniac in the eyes of the world , and was proceeding to pursue his line of thought further , when a faint , sweet strain , the very ghost of sound , so remote and attenuated it seemed , struck upon his ear .