The hour of five
Twenty minutes passed , and the girl returned miserably to the hand-post , still to wander back to her retreat behind the sedge , and lead any chance comer from the opposite quarter to believe that she had not yet reached this ultimate point beyond which a meeting with Christopher was impossible . ` Now you 'll find that she means to wait the complete half-hour , and then off she goes with a broken heart . ' All three now looked through the hole to test the truth of the prognostication . The hour of five completed itself on their watches ; the girl again came forward . And then the three in ambuscade could see her pull out her handkerchief and place it to her eyes . ` She 's grieving now because he has not come . Poor little woman , what a brute he must be ; for a broken heart in a woman means a broken vow in a man , as I infer from a thousand instances in experience , romance , and history .