When Gilbert, already fallen in love with Helen, begins to believe that she is a bad woman, she gives him her diary. In her diary she writes about her live with her husband, Arthur Huntingdon, who drinks a lot of alcohol and behaves himself badly. When he begins to make their son, also Arthur, alcoholic and teaches him to say bad words, Helen decides to run away from him. After many troubles she secretly comes to live at Wildfell Hall.