Doubts and Difficulties
- Henry Lennox has left the Hale house. Everyone is getting ready for bed.
- Margaret thinks about how she might have loved Henry if only he'd been a little different in some fundamental ways.
- As the evening drags on, Mr. Hale gets up from his chair and starts to sigh deeply. Margaret still can't figure out what's been bothering him so much.
- Mr. Hale asks Margaret to drop what she's doing and come speak with him in his study. Margaret assumes that he's going to talk to her about her rejection of Henry.
- Instead, Mr. Hale informs her that the family will have to leave Helstone. It turns out that Mr. Hale no longer believes in the Church of England and he can't in good conscience keep working as a pastor.
- When Margaret asks where they'll go and what they'll do, Mr. Hale informs her that he has an old buddy named Mr. Bell who lives in a town called Milton in the north of England. Mr. Bell is Margaret's godfather. Mr. Hale plans on working as a private tutor up there, even though it will make them poor.
- Margaret knows that Milton is a dirty manufacturing town that doesn't have one-tenth of the dignity Helstone does. She dreads moving there.
- On top of all that, Mr. Hale hasn't told Margaret's mother yet. He was kind of hoping that Margaret could do it for him. Nice.
- Seeing what a worked-up emotional state her father is in, Margaret agrees to tell her mother the next day while her father is out of the house. In case you haven't realized, the dude is scared of his wife.