Siegmund deserts his family in the London suburbs for a five day holiday on the Isle of Wight with his lover and violin pupil Helena. Despairing of both his marriage and his future with Helena, Siegmund returns home and takes his own life. Made of stronger stuff, Helena and Beatrice, his wife, move on. In his second published novel, based on the journal of his friend Helen Corke, Lawrence skilfully interweaves romantic melodrama, domestic realism and imaginative symbolism as he begins to explore the sexual and philosophical themes of his later novels.
