Book 3, Part 3 Summary

Norman Page is treated like a hero when he returns from the war with a wounded leg. Doc Swain becomes suspicious and proves to Seth Buswell that Norman's wounds are faked—Norman was, in fact, discharged from military service for being unfit. Doc theorizes that Evelyn Page was behind the plan to bring Norman home. Evelyn had plotted with Norman to have him come home as a hero. Norman settles into a quiet job at the newspaper, and continues to be haunted by dreams of the war and of Hester Goodale, all of which end with him taking refuge in his mother's arms. "At such times," the author writes, "Norman awoke to warmth and wetness and a sense that his mother had saved him from a terrible danger".

Norman's "heroism" and subsequent behavior, as well as Kathy Ellsworth's stoicism and...