Twenty-four years earlier, Ethan is walking through Starkfield’s streets, enjoying the cold, still night air; having briefly studied engineering, Ethan remains fascinated by science and the natural world. He reaches the church, where he’s gone to pick up his wife’s cousin Mattie, and peers inside at the dance that’s winding down.

For the final reel, Mattie is partnering Denis Eady, the womanizing son of the local grocer. Ethan grows irritated as he watches the couple and questions whether the connection he feels to Mattie is one-sided; Mattie seems to share his love of nature and learning, and over the year she has lived with the Fromes, Ethan has come to treasure their conversations. He recalls that his wife, Zeena, once mentioned the possibility of Mattie and Denis marrying and broods over this; Zeena has always been critical of Mattie’s housekeeping, but Ethan suspects that she now may be jealous of Mattie and looking for reasons to dismiss her. One seemingly stray remark Zeena made about his shaving habits especially troubles him: “It was a fact that since Mattie Silver’s coming he had taken to shaving every day; but his wife always seemed to be asleep when he left her side in the winter darkness, and he had stupidly assumed that she would not notice any change in his appearance” (25).