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.