nine o'clock
`` Surely an angel 's countenance can not be fairer , purer than hers , '' he thought , listening while she talked of the only thing which had a power to separate her from him , making her seem as a friend , or at most as a beloved sister . A long time they talked together , and the sun was setting ere Morris rose , suggesting that she go home , as the night dew would soon be falling . `` And you are not as strong as you once were , '' he added , pulling her shawl around her shoulders with careful solicitude , and thinking how slender she had become . From the back parlor Helen saw them coming up the path , detecting the changed expression of Morris ' face , and feeling a pang of fear when as he left them after nine o'clock she heard her mother say that he had not appeared so natural since Katy went away as he had done that night . Knowing what she did , Helen trembled for Morris , with this terrible temptation before him , and Morris trembled for himself as he went back the lonely path , and stopped again beneath the chestnut tree where he had so lately sat with Katy . There was a great fear at his heart , and it found utterance in words as kneeling by the rustic bench with only the lonely night around him and the green boughs overhead , he asked that he might be kept from sin , both in thought and deed , and be to Katy Cameron just what she took him for , her friend and elder brother . And God , who knew the sincerity of the heart thus pleading before him , heard and answered the prayer , so that after that first night of trial Morris could look on Katy without a wish that she were otherwise than Wilford Cameron 's wife and the mother of his child .