It was an hour of terrible suffering that Wilfrid lived through before he left the study and went to lay his head on the pillow.  He had not thought very much of Beatrice hitherto; the passion which had spurred him blindly on made him forgetful of everything but the end his heart desired.  Now that the end was within reach, he could consider what it was that he had done.  He was acting like a very madman.  He could not hope that any soul would regard his frenzy even with compassion; on all sides he would meet with the sternest condemnation.  Who would recognise his wife?  This step which he was taking meant rupture with all his relatives, perchance with all his friends; for it would be universally declared that he had been guilty of utter baseness.  His career was ruined.  It might happen that he would have to leave England with Emily, abandoning for her sake everything else that he prized.

How would Beatrice bear the revelation?  Mere suspense had made her ill; such a blow as this might kill her.  Never before had he been consciously guilty of an act of cruelty or of wrong to any the least valued of those with whom he had dealt; to realise what his treachery meant to Beatrice was so terrible that he dared not fix his thought upon it.  Her love for him was intense beyond anything he had imagined in woman; Emily had never seemed to him possessed with so vehement a passion.  Indeed he had often doubted whether Emily’s was a passionate nature; at times she was almost cold—­appeared so, in his thought of her—­and never had she given way to that self-forgetful ardour which was so common in Beatrice.  Sweat broke out upon his forehead as he saw the tragic issues to which his life was tending.  There was no retreat, save by a second act of apostasy so unspeakably shameful that the brand of it would drive him to self-destruction.  He had made his choice, or had been driven upon it by the powers which ruled his destiny; it only remained to have the courage of his resolve and to defy consequences.  At least it was in no less a cause than that of his life’s one love.  There was no stamp of turpitude on the end for which he would sacrifice so much and occasion so much misery.

He passed the time in his own rooms till the afternoon of the following day; then, at the customary hour, he set forth to visit Beatrice.  Would she see him?  In his heart he hoped that she would refuse to; yet he dreaded lest he should be told that she was too unwell.  It was a new thing in Wilfrid’s experience to approach any door with shame and dread; between his ringing the bell and the servant’s answer he learnt ’well what those words mean.

He was admitted as usual, the servant making no remark.  As usual, he was led to Beatrice’s room.