noon
`` I could not say long . It was at the most but a year ; so I merely shook my head , but I felt strangely nonplussed . `` This feeling , however , soon gave way to one much more serious as the moments fled by and presently the hours , and she did not come . We tried to curb our impatience , tried to believe that her delay was only owing to extra caution ; but as morning waxed to noon , alarm took the place of satisfaction in our breasts , and we began to search the house ourselves , calling her name up and down the halls and through the empty rooms , till it seemed as if the very walls must open and reveal us the being so frantically desired . '' ` She is not in the house , ' I now asserted to the almost frenzied bridegroom . ` Our lies have come back upon our heads , and it is in the river we must look for her . ' `` But he would not agree with me in this , and repeated again and again : ` She said she would hide here .