Chapter 2 Summary

The train arrives at the station in Port Warwick. After Mr. Casper and Barclay get the limousine running again, Dolly Bonner goes in search of Milton. She finds him in a nearby diner talking to Hazel, the woman who runs the establishment. Dolly comforts Milton in his distress over Peyton's death. Milton remembers the reasons why he once loved Dolly so much. Recently, though, Milton has wearied of Dolly; her submissiveness and meaningless prattling on dampen his spirits. He admits to himself that the only reason he asked Dolly to accompany him to the station is that his wife, Helen, flatly refuses to go. This chapter once again follows Milton Loftis's remembrances of his beautiful daughter, Peyton, and the tense relationship he had with his own father. Milton considered his father a failure and never set much store by the so-called advice his...