When Kindness Becomes Weakness — The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

On their third wedding anniversary Helen records two months alone with Arthur after the guests' departure: master and mistress, parents of a merry child, bound by civility without love or sympathy. Arthur is peevish over Annabella's absence, calls Helen cold and repulsive, and refuses separation because gossip would blame him. Helen threatens to stop unpaid stewardship if bondage grows intolerable; he would rather she wept than stayed marble-calm.

He slips back into wine despite Annabella's earlier influence, blames Helen for driving him to it, and alternates brutishness with self-pity. Helen warns that drink disfigures him and that Annabella would withdraw her favour; coarse abuse is the usual reply. Hargrave and Arthur hunt together; Helen almost welcomes the distraction though Hargrave's propriety lately tempts her to trust him.

A thaw in Helen's hardness ends violently. Arthur tosses her Lady Lowborough's impassioned letter with blasphemous defiance of their marriages and titters at Helen's pallor. She returns it saying she will take a lesson by it, then snatches little Arthur from his father's knee when the child cries for papa. Arthur swears and carries the boy off. Helen grieves that her son already loves his corrupting father more than her, yet clings to scripture for one who sits in darkness: trust in the Lord and stay upon God.