Despite the snow visible on the ground outside, the paterfamilias stands by an open door, gesturing angrily for her to depart.

The mother of the family comforts a weeping son, while a fourth daughter looks on in confusion.

An incriminating letter lies on the floor, and a biblical painting – probably Abraham casting out Hagar and Ishmael, but possibly Christ and the woman taken in adultery – hangs on the wall.

The device of the incriminating letter was used to better effect in a similar context by Augustus Egg in his 1858 painting Past and Present, No.

The painting is ambiguous: it could be meant as a warning to other women to avoid a similar fate, or could be intended to evoke sympathy for the plight of the young mother abandoned by her family.