Connie showed this letter to Mellors.

`He wants to begin his revenge on you,' he said, handing the letter back.

Connie was silent. She was somewhat surprised to find that she was afraid of Clifford. She was afraid to go near him. She was afraid of him as if he were evil and dangerous.

`What shall I do?' she said.

`Nothing, if you don't want to do anything.'

She replied, trying to put Clifford off. He answered:

If you don't come back to Wragby now, I shall consider that you are coming back one day, and act accordingly. I shall just go on the same, and wait for you here, if I wait for fifty years.

She was frightened. This was bullying of an insidious sort. She had no doubt he meant what he said. He would not divorce her, and the child would be his, unless she could find some means of establishing its illegitimacy.

After a time of worry and harassment, she decided to go to Wragby. Hilda would go with her. She wrote this to Clifford. He replied:

I shall not welcome your sister, but I shall not deity her the door. I have no doubt she has connived at your desertion of your duties and responsibilities, so do not expect me to show pleasure in seeing her.

They went to Wragby. Clifford was away when they arrived. Mrs Bolton received them.

`Oh, your Ladyship, it isn't the happy home-coming we hoped for, is it!' she said.

`Isn't it?' said Connie.

So this woman knew! How much did the rest of the servants know or suspect?

She entered the house, which now she hated with every fibre in her body. The great, rambling mass of a place seemed evil to her, just a menace over her. She was no longer its mistress, she was its victim.

`I can't stay long here,' she whispered to Hilda, terrified.

And she suffered going into her own bedroom, re-entering into possession as if nothing had happened. She hated every minute inside the Wragby walls.

They did not meet Clifford till they went down to dinner. He was dressed, and with a black tie: rather reserved, and very much the superior gentleman. He behaved perfectly politely during the meal and kept a polite sort of conversation going: but it seemed all touched with insanity.

`How much do the servants know?' asked Connie, when the woman was out of the room.

`Of your intentions? Nothing whatsoever.'

`Mrs Bolton knows.'

He changed colour.

`Mrs Bolton is not exactly one of the servants,' he said.

`Oh, I don't mind.'