midnight
These suspicions are fostered by you as certainties ; the tenor of my life , of all my conversations and letters , affords me no security ; every sentiment that my tongue and my pen have uttered , bear testimony to the rectitude of my mind ; but this testimony is rejected . I am condemned as brutally profligate : I am classed with the stupidly and sordidly wicked . `` And where are the proofs that must justify so foul and so improbable an accusation ? You have overheard a midnight conference . Voices have saluted your ear , in which you imagine yourself to have recognized mine , and that of a detected villain . The sentiments expressed were not allowed to outweigh the casual or concerted resemblance of voice . Sentiments the reverse of all those whose influence my former life had attested , denoting a mind polluted by grovelling vices , and entering into compact with that of a thief and a murderer .