Part 5, Chapter 27 Summary

When fellow teacher Phil Callow introduces Colin to a woman named Elizabeth, it is the start of a new relationship. She's a married woman who has been separated from her husband for over a year. She works as a pharmacist in her father's drugstore and currently lives with her sister in the town in which Colin teaches.

Colin and Elizabeth spend time talking about their lives and the ways they have intersected. When Elizabeth asks about Colin's friends in Saxton, Colin remarks that most of them have left and started their own families. It appears to Elizabeth that Colin is merely walking through life waiting for things to happen to him instead of going out and making things happen.

The atmosphere in the Saville household has become so strained that Colin spends his evenings walking through the town where he teaches...