ten o'clock
And so the pretty Lieschen , with feminine instinct of ruse , had affected to treat her lover with indifference ; and to compensate him and herself for this restraint , she had been in the habit of escaping from home once or twice a week , and spending a delicious hour or two at night in the company of her lover and his mother . Kerkel and his mother lived in a cottage a little way outside the town . Lehfeldt 's shop stood not many yards from the archway . Now , as in Nuremberg no one was abroad after ten o'clock , except a few loungers at the cafes and beer-houses , and these were only to be met inside the town , not outside it , Lieschen ran extremely little risk of being observed in her rapid transit from her father 's to her lover 's house . Nor , indeed , had she ever met anyone in the course of these visits . On the fatal night Lieschen was expected at the cottage . Mother and son waited at first hopefully , then anxiously , at last with some vague uneasiness at her non-appearance .