“But when he came back after dark, he found the house broken into, so he went upstairs to see what she’d done, and he found her in bed without a rag on her. He offered her money, but she said she was his wife and he must take her back. I don’t know what sort of a scene they had. His mother told me about it, she’s terribly upset. Well he told her he’d die rather than ever live with her again, so he took his things and went straight to his mother’s on Tevershall hill. He stopped the night and went to the wood next day through the park, never going near the cottage. It seems he never saw his wife that day. But the day after she was at her brother Dan’s at Beggarlee, swearing and carrying on, saying she was his legal wife, and that he’d been having women at the cottage, because she’d found a scent-bottle in his drawer, and gold-tipped cigarette-ends on the ashheap, and I don’t know what all. Then it seems the postman Fred Kirk says he heard somebody talking in Mr. Mellors’ bedroom early one morning, and a motorcar had been in the lane.

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