After lunch, Mr. Bell and Margaret walk about Helstone, visiting all the places Margaret loved. They stop by the cottage where a little girl- Susan- whom Margaret had befriended during her stay in Helstone lives with her widowed mother. She is disappointed to be told that Susan is not home, now being enrolled in the local parochial school. Margaret asks Mr. Bell if he would mind stopping by the school and he agrees.
At the school, Margaret is somewhat abashed to find the teacher is Mrs. Hepworth, the new vicar's wife. Her discomfort is not helped by Mrs. Hepworth's rather patronising air when she's talking with Margaret. Nevertheless, she stays, happy to speak with the children with whom she had been well acquainted from visits as the vicar's daughter. The children are, of course, almost three years older and this again brings home to Margaret that nothing, even Helstone, remains the same.
Afterwards Margaret and Mr. Bell return to the inn to wait for the train. While there, Mr. Bell naps in his chair while Margaret gazes out the window, reflecting over the day's visit, which has been bittersweet. When Mr. Bell wakes up, he asks Margaret why she looks so sad and she asks him if he remembers the conversation they had with Mr. Lennox some days before and how he was surprised to hear that Frederick had been in England when their mother died.