She believed he would not spare her an item of suffering which it was in his power to inflict.

She knew that appeal to him was worse than useless, for it was only too clear that for her to approach him was to inflame his resolution.

Her instinctive fear of him was terribly justified.
With her alone, then, it lay to save her parents from the most dreadful fate that could befal them, from infamy, from destitution, from despair.
For, even if her father escaped imprisonment, it would be impossible for him to live on in Dunfield, and how, at his age, was a new life to be begun?
And it was idle to expect that the last degradation would be spared him; his disgrace would involve her; Dagworthy's jealousy would not neglect such a means of striking at her engagement.

And Wilfrid must needs know; to Emily not even the possibility of hiding such a thing from him suggested itself.

Could she become his wife with that stigma upon her, bringing as dowry her beggared parents for him to support?
Did it mean that?
Was this the thought that she had dreaded to face throughout the day?
Was it not only her father whose ruin was involved, and must she too bid farewell to hope?
She let those ghastly eyes stare from the darkness into her own, and tried to exhaust their horror.