Mrs. Blencarrow looked at him fixedly and spoke slowly, being, indeed, forced to do so by a difficulty in enunciating the words. ‘The story you have heard is—true.’
The Vicar rose from his chair in the sudden shock and horror; he looked round him like a man stupefied, taking in slowly the whole scene—the woman who was not looking at him, but was gazing straight before her, with those spots of red excitement on her cheeks; the shadow of the man in the background, with face hidden, unsurprised. Mr. Germaine slowly received this astounding, inconceivable thought into his mind.
‘Good God!’ he cried.
‘I make no—explanations—no—excuses. The fact is enough,’ she said.
The fact was enough; his mind refused to receive it, yet grasped it with the force of a catastrophe. He sat down helpless, without a word to say, with a wave of his hands to express his impotence, his incapacity even to think in face of a revelation so astounding and terrible; and for a full minute there was complete silence; neither of the three moved or spoke. The calm ticking of the clock took up the tale, as if the room had been vacant—time going on indifferent to all the downfalls and shame of humanity—with now and then a crackle from the glowing fire.
She said at last, being the first, as a woman usually is, to be moved to impatience by the deadly silence, ‘It was not only to tell you—but to ask, what am I to do?’
‘Mrs. Blencarrow—I have not a word—I—it is incredible.’
‘Yes,’ she said with a faint smile, ‘but very true.’ She repeated after another pause, ‘What am I to do?’
Mr. Germaine had never in his life been called upon to face such a question. His knowledge of moral problems concerned the more primitive classes of humanity alone, where action is more obvious and the difficulties less great. Nothing like this could occur in a village. He sat and gazed at the woman, who was not a mere victim of passion—a foolish woman who had taken a false step and now had to own to it—but a lady of blameless honour and reputation, proud, full of dignity, the head of a well-known family, the mother of children old enough to understand her downfall and shame, with, so far as he knew, further penalties involved of leaving them, and every habit of her life, and following the man, whoever he was, into whatsoever wilderness he might seek. The Vicar felt that all the ordinary advice which he would give in such a case was stopped upon his lips. There was no parallel between what was involved here and anything that could occur among the country folk. He sat, feeling the problem beyond him, and without a word to say.
‘I must tell you more,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow. At her high strain of excitement she was scarcely aware that he hesitated to reply, and not at all that he was so much bewildered as to be beyond speech. She went on as if she had not paused at all. ‘A thing has happened—which must often happen; how can I tell you? It has been—not happy—for either. We miscalculated—ourselves and all things. If I am wrong, I am—subject—to contradiction,’ she said, suddenly stopping with a gasp as if for breath.