Section 1: Part 4 (pp. 52-68) Summary

This section begins with a brief interlude set in the present, in which the narrator contemplates the night-time silence of The Cedars and wonders what goes on in the other rooms beneath the blanket of darkness and quiet. He imagines, for example, that the Colonel has a secret passion for Miss Vavasour, and that Miss Vavasour sometimes cries herself to sleep (a surmise based on her sometimes coming to breakfast with red, tired eyes). He wonders whether she "blame[s] herself for all that happened and grieve[s] for it still," but doesn't offer any indication of what that "all" might be. "What a little vessel of sadness we are," he writes, "sailing in this muffled silence through the autumn dark."

This experience of night leads the narrator to comment that he thinks most about the Graces...