The Artist's Secret — The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

At month's end Rose finally drags Gilbert into Mrs Graham's studio, where easels, oils, and a morning view of Wildfell Hall show painting is livelihood, not hobby. Helen works while they talk; she admits she falsifies titles and places on canvases sent to London so old acquaintances cannot trace her through style or subject. Arthur blurts that someone sells the pictures for money they live on. Gilbert admires sketches of Lindenhope, a sorrowful child with withered flowers, and baby Arthur's portrait; lifting a canvas turned to the wall he finds a handsome young man painted years earlier with coarser technique. Helen returns from speaking to a visitor outside, erupts at the intrusion, and hides the portrait face-in. Gilbert sulks toward the door until she offers a conciliatory handshake and apology about letting the sun go down on wrath. He squeezes her hand warmly and they part friends for once. Before the portrait crisis Helen had described exhausting local subjects, asked about the distant sea walk Gilbert once offered, and fled the room when a man's coat vanished past the holly bush, Arthur calling him mamma's friend. Attraction survives the quarrel, but the visit proves her art is camouflage as much as income and that any probe into her past will be met with force.