about four o'clock in the morning
Next morning Minnie was down at Hollowmell before any one in that region was stirring . She had carried down with her a basket filled with provisions , feeling sure that under the sorrowful circumstances it would be required . She found , as she had expected , that Mrs. Malone was dead . She died at about four o'clock in the morning , her husband informed Minnie , and her last words had been the words he had been reading to her from the fourteenth chapter of John , `` Let not your heart be troubled , neither let it be afraid . '' He was sitting beside the remains of his wife with the book in his hand , as if he had never moved since the moment of her death , when Minnie entered . He had really loved his wife with all the fervour of his passionate Irish nature , and the remembrance that but for his intemperance , and his cruelty to her , when under the influence of drink , she might have still been alive and happy , had overcome him to such an extent that he had fallen into a half unconscious state , and did not seem to be able to realise anything except that she would speak to him no more . Minnie could not wait then , so she ran into another cottage a little way further on , the door of which was already open , and finding the object of her search -LRB- Molly Gray -RRB- engaged in the preparation of her own breakfast , she told her of the calamity which had befallen the Malones , and begged her to go in and help them .