ABSTRACT
It is neither desirable, nor necessary, nor even possible, to unwind the entire tangled skein of Murry’s private life in the six months following his return from America. The curious may consult Gissing’s novel, The Year of Jubilee, in which he himself found the closest parallel. On the other hand, neither can it be ignored, if only because there was so little that was private about it. Suffice it then to say that his break with Larling was by no means so final as intended. Although he had taken advantage of his wife’s absence on a cruise to transfer his indispensable belongings to Langham, where the two elder children spent their summer holidays, and Nehale was to join him in the autumn, Betty would hear nothing of a separation, much less consent to a divorce. The result was a phantasmagoria of comings and goings, negotiations, altercations, raids, kidnappings and settlements that settled nothing. It was not till the middle of October that the situation came to a head.
