Martha returns home late in the morning and pauses between going to the mill or the house. A silver fox appears on the snowy slope and seems, by its repeated looks and sudden cry, to urge Martha toward the house instead. Martha obeys, meets her youngest son, Young Ephraim, at the gate, and reflects on her surviving children, her age, and the grief that still lives beside her joy as a mother.

Inside, Hannah and Dolly tell Martha how Jonathan brought Sam Dawin home after he nearly died in the river. The sisters stripped Sam’s wet clothes, warmed him with blankets, hot stones, tea, and broth, then hid his breeches to keep him from leaving too soon. When Martha asks after Jonathan and Cyrus, the conversation shifts, and Dolly reveals that at the Frolic the night before, Joshua Burgess harassed Hannah, grabbed her hard enough to bruise her arm, and provoked a fight with Cyrus. Hannah, Dolly, Jonathan, Sam, and others confirm that Burgess was thrown out into the snow alive. Martha conceals that Burgess is now dead, but Hannah’s bruises deepen Martha’s anger and her fear that Cyrus may be drawn into the killing.

Martha brings food to Sam and questions him privately about what he saw beneath the ice. Sam admits that once he was pulled from the river, he recognized the dead man as Burgess, whose face was just below the surface, but he says he noticed little else in the dark water. When Martha tells Sam Burgess was hanged and asks whether he saw a rope or anything unusual, Sam offers nothing more and asks to leave so he can see May Kimble.

After Jonathan returns from notifying May, Martha stops him outside and presses him for the truth about the Frolic. Jonathan confirms that Burgess came uninvited, caused a public scene, and touched Hannah; he insists that everyone saw the fight and that Burgess was alive when he and the others threw him out. Martha believes Jonathan on that point but senses he is withholding part of the story. Sam then leaves with Jonathan, still shaken.

Back in her workroom, Martha steadies herself by writing in her journal, reflecting on writing as both a duty and a protection against false memory. As she records the birth she attended and Sam’s rescue, she remembers and finds an older entry stating that Mrs. Foster had accused several men of rape, including Joseph North. Realizing Burgess’s death may be tied to that accusation, Martha decides she must warn Rebecca before someone else does. She dresses to ride out, finds Cyrus in the barn with fresh injuries from the fight, tells him Burgess is dead, and orders him to give her the full account when she returns.