Lady Audley’s Secret: Volume 2, Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Robert walks alone and contemplates the nature of happiness. He remarks on how little time one is truly happy and how fondly one thinks of that little happiness. He determines that happiness is completely accidental. Consider marriage: for one to be happy in marriage, one must meet the right woman at the right time. He thinks about how he could have easily missed Clara when she came to talk to him, and then he would have abandoned George’s case forever.

Robert thinks how life is often cruelly indifferent to the plight of humans. He wonders why more people are not in mad-houses, given that one can feel so much sorrow even as the outside world goes on in a calm, orderly fashion. He remembers that people go on day to day shifting between sanity and madness.

Robert admits that he submits completely to Clara’s will. He expands his musings by stating that men are often lazy and indifferent, but women, being active and passionate, drive them towards the work needed for society. Women are the stronger sex and since they cannot hold much power in society, women instead rule over the domestic sphere. Robert argues that women should be allowed in the public sphere.

Robert then states that he hates women, calling them “bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors.” Take George for an example. He married a woman and lost his inheritance. He goes to a woman’s house and disappears. Robert also thinks of Alicia, who will no doubt force him to marry her.

Robert returns to Fig-tree Court to find his delivery of French novels, which he has no interest in, and a package from Clara. The package contains two letters from George. One, written right after his marriage, contains every minute detail of his wife. Robert states that George couldn’t have known how this description would later be a clue in a criminal investigation.