Then, first, Tom's conscience gave him a sharp sting.
He was far from well.

The careless and in many respects dissolute life he had been leading had more than begun to tell on a constitution by no means strong, but he had never become aware of his weakness nor had ever felt really ill until now.
But that sting, although the first sharp one, was not his first warning of a waking conscience.

Ever since he took his place at his wife's bedside, he had been fighting off the conviction that he was a brute.
He would not, he could not believe it.

What! Tom Helmer, the fine, indubitable fellow! such as he had always known himself!--he to cower before his own consciousness as a man unworthy, and greatly to be despised! The chaos was come again! And, verily, chaos was there, but not by any means newly come.

And, moreover, when chaos begins to be conscious of itself, then is the dawn of an ordered world at hand.