Summary

Vera retraced her path back to the town, in the beginning of Part IV. As she wended her way away from the train station, she feared that the “affliction had concealed [the supply road] from [her], that [she] had walked right past it and seen nothing but jungle” (190). However, she found the dirt path and ignored her urge to turn back, she was too near to Peter and Iris to heed Mr. Phillips’ warning and abandon her quest. When she arrived, the town was quiet and empty and “not as [she] remembered it” (191). The narrator made her way to the Alpina, too afraid to return to the house on Hinter de Wald. Marie was behind the counter at the hotel, but she asked for Vera’s name and told her she likely had never “seen any place quite so beautiful before” (193). Vera attempted...