ten o'clock
`` No , '' replied Hilda . `` He told me he would n't be at the theater , but would surely come here . '' The fact that her lover had said so settled it to her mind . They did not leave the Square until ten o'clock , when it was almost deserted and most of its throngs of an hour before were in bed sleeping soundly in the content that comes from a life of labor . And when she did get to bed she lay awake for nearly an hour , tired though she was . Without doubt some misfortune had befallen him -- `` He 's been hurt or is ill , '' she decided . The next morning she stood in the door of the shop watching for the postman on his first round ; as he turned the corner of Second Street , she could not restrain herself , but ran to meet him .