The clergy were horror-struck at the disgrace brought upon their cloth by this terrific explosion; for people grew inclined to look upon real ecclesiastical sanctity as nothing more nor less than a garb of rank hypocrisy.
Some ministers of the gospel, more daring and enthusiastic than the rest, boldly proclaimed from their pulpits that Reginald Tracy was a saint and a martyr, against whom a horrible conspiracy had been concocted in order to remove the imputation of murder from the young female who had been discharged, and fix it on him.
Other clergymen entered into learned disquisitions to prove that Satan must have obtained especial leave from God, as in the case of Job, to tempt the most holy and pious of men; and that, having failed to seduce him from the right path, the Evil One had accomplished a series of atrocities all so artfully arranged as to fix the stain upon the rector of St. David's.
But there were some reverend gentlemen, who, having always been jealous of Reginald Tracy's popularity, descanted in significant terms upon the shallowness of mere eloquence in the pulpit, and the folly of running after "fashionable preachers." One venerable and holy gentleman, who had been married three times, and had received from his wives an aggregate of seventeen pledges of their affection, bitterly denounced in his sermon the "whitened sepulchre," "tinkling cymbal," and "unclean vessel," who had dared to set his face against the sacred institution of matrimony.
The fashionable world was powerfully excited by the exposure of Reginald Tracy. Some wiseacres shook their heads, and observed that they had always suspected there was something wrong about the rector; others plainly asserted that they had even prophesied what would happen some day. The fair sex all agreed that it was a great pity, as he was such a charming preacher and such a handsome man!
The press was not idle in respect to the business. The newspapers teemed with "Latest Particulars;" and all the penny-a-liners in London were on the alert to collate additional facts. Nine out of ten of these facts, however, turned out to be pure fictions. One journal, conducted on more imaginative principles than its contemporaries, promulgated a new discovery which it had made in respect to the rector's history, and coolly fixed upon his back all the murders which had occurred in the metropolis during the previous dozen years, and the perpetrators of which had never yet been detected.
Heaven knows Reginald Tracy was bad enough; but if one believed all which was now said of him in the public journals, no monster that ever disgraced humanity was so vile as he.
Some of the cheap unstamped periodicals treated their readers with portraits of the rector; and as very few of the artists who were employed to draw them had ever seen their subject, and were now unable to obtain access to him, their inventive faculties were put to the most exciting test. And, as a convincing proof that no two persons entertain the same idea of an object which they have never seen, it may be observed that there was a most extraordinary variety in the respective characteristics of these portraits.
In a word, the rector's name engrossed universal attention:—a cheap romance was issued, entitled "The Murdered Housekeeper; or the Corrupt Clergyman;"—one of the minor theatres attracted crowded houses by the embodiment of the particulars of the case in a melodrama;—and Madame Tussaud added the effigy of Reginald Tracy to her collection of wax-works.
But what were the feelings of Lady Cecilia Harborough when the terrible announcement of the rector's arrest met her ears!