After killing the bear, Marguerite withdraws into a beast-like existence through the long winter, eating, sleeping, and suffering vivid nightmares of animals and her own death. She loses track of time and ceases to read or pray, fearing she is going mad as she hears a strange roaring outside her cave.

Venturing out, she discovers the sea has thawed but the air is so cold that waves freeze and shatter as they break against the shore. Witnessing this terrible beauty, Marguerite feels God's presence in her insignificance and prays not for rescue but for the restoration of her soul. She returns to her cave, bathes, dresses in one of Damienne's gowns, cleans her dwelling, and starts a new calendar, naming the day Easter to mark her return to life.

Her renewal is uneven: she keeps her calendar but cannot pray to the Virgin, whom she blames for the deaths of Auguste, her child, and Damienne. After spraining her ankle and nearly starving, she heals and grows stronger as spring arrives. She fishes, gathers eggs, harvests salt, and goes barefoot, living simply and finding scripture newly meaningful. She unexpectedly finds Claire's lost gold ring shining in the grass, interpreting it not as a miracle but as fortunate happenstance.

One morning Marguerite hears men's voices for the first time since Damienne's death. From a hidden vantage, she watches twelve sun-tanned fishermen in two open, two-masted boats cleaning cod on her shore, speaking a foreign tongue. She marvels at their skill yet recoils at their coarseness, torn between her longing for rescue and fear of being the lone woman among strangers.

Retreating to her cave, she debates the danger. Holding the bear's claw from the Virgin's altar, she remembers her vow to live and recognizes that without powder she cannot survive another winter. Resolved, she dresses hastily, covers her hair, ties on her knife, and climbs down to reveal herself to the strangers.