"
"Oh! my God!" cried Mr. Chantrey. It was a cry from the very depths of
his spirit, as by a sudden flash he saw the full meaning of Ann
Holland's faltered words. Sophy had fled from him, conscious that she
was in no fit state to meet him after their long separation. She was
sleeping now the heavy sleep of excess. Was it possible that this was
true? Could it be anything but a feverish dream that he was sitting
there, and Ann Holland was telling him such an utterly incredible story?
Sophy, his wife, the mother of his child!
But Ann Holland's tearful face, with its expression of profound grief
and pity, was too real for her story to be a dream. He, David Chantrey,
the rector of Upton, whom all men looked up to and esteemed, had a wife,
who was whispered about among them all as a victim to a vile and
degrading sin. A strong shock of revulsion ran through his veins, which
had been thrilling with an unquiet happiness all the day. There was an
inexplicable, mysterious misery in it. If he had come home to find her
dead, he could have borne to look upon her lying in her coffin, knowing
that life could never be bright again for him; but he would have held up
his head among his fellow-men.
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