midnight
`` Now I am sure to get what I deserve , with usury at forty per cent in advance , '' said Farnsworth dryly , shrugging his shoulders with undissembled dread of Hamilton 's wrath . But the anticipation was not realized . The Governor received Farnsworth stiffly enough , yet in a way that suggested a suppressed desire to avoid explanations on the Captain 's part and a reprimand on his own . In fact , Hamilton was hoping that something would turn up to shield him from the effect of his terrible midnight adventure , which seemed the darker the more he thought of it . He had a slow , numb conscience , lying deep where it was hard to reach , and when a qualm somehow entered it he endured in secret what most men would have cast off or confessed . He was haunted , if not with remorse , at least by a dread of something most disagreeable in connection with what he had done . Alice 's white face had impressed itself indelibly on his memory , so that it met his inner vision at every turn .