midnight
And then , as suddenly as the dreadful genie arose in vapor from the copper vase of the fisherman , arose in that room the formidable shape of the New England Conscience . The terrible thing that Medora had done was revealed to her in its full enormity . She had sat in the presence of the ungodly and looked upon the wine both when it was red and effervescent . At midnight she wrote this letter : `` MR. BERIAH HOSKINS , Harmony , Vermont . `` Dear Sir : Henceforth , consider me as dead to you forever . I have loved you too well to blight your career by bringing into it my guilty and sin-stained life . I have succumbed to the insidious wiles of this wicked world and have been drawn into the vortex of Bohemia .