midnight
`` I say the accusation is false , '' repeated Beauchamp . `` I do not say that Mr Forbes consciously invented the calumny in order to take away my character : such an assertion would preclude its own credence . Nor do I venture to affirm that he never was stabbed , or thrown into the river . But I ask any gentleman who happens to be aware of Mr Forbes 's devotions at the shrine of Father Lyaeus , which is the more likely -- that a fellow-student should stab and throw him into the water , or that , as he was reeling home at midnight , the treacherous divinity of the bowl should have handed him over to the embrace of his brother deity of the river . Why then should even his imagination fix upon me as the source of the injury ? Gentlemen , a foolish attachment to the customs of a long line of ancestors has led me into what I find for the first time to be a dangerous habit -- that of wearing arms ; -- dangerous , I mean , to myself ; for now I am wounded with my own weapon . But the real secret of the affair is -- I am ashamed to say -- jealousy .