chunk: Rhoda, on the other hand, is on a holiday in Northumberland, and Everard goes to see her there. He woos her and at first suggests they enter a free-union (i.e. live together out of wedlock), which would appear to be consistent with her principles. However, she gives him a conventional "womanly" response and agrees to be with him only in a legal union; Barfoot, somewhat disappointed in her surprising conventionality, proposes marriage, which she accepts. She then receives a letter from Mary telling of Everard's supposed affair with Monica. Rhoda then breaks off the engagement, after Everard proudly refuses to give an explanation but insists he is innocent. After Widdowson confronts Monica over her infidelity, she leaves him but lives at his expense and even moves, together with her sisters, to his rented house in Clevedon. Virginia has become an alcoholic (her way of dealing with being an 'odd woman'). Monica is pregnant by her husband, but her pride will not let her reunite with him.