eight o'clock
Presently the whole household was astir . Mrs. Danvers , firmly convinced that she had been awake all night , left the drawing-room when the housemaid entered it and went upstairs , intending to have a bath and dress , but she went to bed instead . To escape the curious eyes of the servants , who now seemed to be in every room and to be regarding her with not unnatural curiosity , Eleanor wandered out into the hall again and resumed the restless pacing to and fro which she had kept up the greater part of the night . By eight o'clock she seemed to have the principal sitting-rooms to herself . Geoffrey and Maud had not yet come downstairs , and the servants , having finished their dusting and sweeping , had gone to their breakfast . Consequently when the telephone bell in the morning-room rang sharply she was the first person to hear it . Hurrying toward it with the wild hope that at last she was to hear news of Margaret , she caught up the receiver .