a quarter to four o'clock
this was an arm ! She clutched it , imagining that it clung to her . She pulled it to release herself from it , desperately she pulled , and a lump descended , and a flash of all the torn nerves of her body told her that a dead human body was upon her . At a quarter to four o'clock of a midsummer morning , as Mr. Beamish relates of his last share in the Tale of Chloe , a woman 's voice , in piercing notes of anguish , rang out three shrieks consecutively , which were heard by him at the instant of his quitting his front doorstep , in obedience to the summons of young Mr. Camwell , delivered ten minutes previously , with great urgency , by that gentleman 's lacquey . On his reaching the street of the house inhabited by Duchess Susan , he perceived many night-capped heads at windows , and one window of the house in question lifted but vacant . His first impression accused the pair of gentlemen , whom he saw bearing drawn swords in no friendly attitude of an ugly brawl that had probably affrighted her Grace , or her personal attendant , a woman capable of screaming , for he was well assured that it could not have been Chloe , the least likely of her sex to abandon herself to the use of their weapons either in terror or in jeopardy . The antagonists were Mr. Camwell and Count Caseldy .