Summary

We begin this chapter where the last chapter left off, at the community dance, except now we are viewing the dance "through" Sylvester's eyes, and not Jane's. As Sylvester watches Jane, he begins to think back in time to when he first met Ida, which happened at the very same dances so many years ago. Sylvester also thinks about the time when Jane wondered if he had shot the dog Top, to sympathetically put Top out of his misery (162). As it turns out, Top had died on his own, but Sylvester recalls how he had mercy-killed the family's other dog, Hound, which he had previously believed he had done without Jane suspecting (181-182).

Elijah begins to visit Jane on a weekly basis, and they walk around the woods and talk together. Although both Elijah and Jane clearly share an increasing fondness for...