The Cloven Foot by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

It was midnight when John Treverton went upstairs to his study, where there were lighted candles, and a newly replenished fire; for it was one of his habits to read or write late at night. This evening he was in no mood for sleep. He lifted the curtain that hung between the two rooms, and looked into the bedroom. Laura had sobbed herself to sleep. The disordered hair, the hand convulsively clasped upon the pillow, told how far from peace her thoughts had been when she sank into the slumber of mental exhaustion. John Treverton bent down and then turned from the bed with a sigh.

‘My sins have fallen heavily upon you, my poor girl,' he said to himself as he went back to his study and sat down by the fire to think over his position, with all its perplexities and entanglements.