The next day Uncle Benjamin shows up, planning to take Valancy to see Dr. Marsh. He is stymied when she simply refuses to go, even when her mother implores her with floods of tears. Valancy tells them that she knows they think she's lost her mind, but not to worry: she doesn't plan on doing anything dreadful, she just means to have a little fun. The family next sends Olive, thinking that Valancy might listen to her cousin. Valancy mockingly refuses her blandishments as well and Olive, not used to being mocked, leaves offended and pretending to be grieved. Her mother tells her comfortingly that she must remember that Valancy's mind is affected. Uncle James goes to see Dr. Marsh himself and tells him of Valancy's behaviour, hoping that Marsh will declare that she needs to be locked up. Instead, Dr. Marsh points out that nothing Valancy has said or done is proof of lunacy and, worse, seems to be trying not to laugh at some of what James relates to him. Uncle James leaves disgusted and feeling that Cousin Adelaide hadn't married so well after all. Defeated on this front, the family decides that all they can do is keep a watchful eye on Valancy and hope that they can keep news of her mental instability from spreading beyond the family.
Roaring Abel Gay is, of course, a drunk and unrepentant reprobate, but an interesting and amusing conversationalist. Valancy asks after his daughter Cissy, whom she was at school with though Cissy was a little younger. Cissy's mother died when she was a child, but Abel, though never darkening the door of a church himself, had made sure that his daughter attended church and school. She grew up to be quietly pretty and shy, and most people in town liked her and felt sorry for her. This didn't stop them from turning on her when the fall came: four years previously she had gone to work at a Muskoka hotel as a waitress during tourist season. When she returned home, she stayed away from town but the scandal eventually leaked out and raged: Cissy was pregnant and that winter had a baby boy. Cissy refused to name the father, though gossip laid the blame at Barney Snaith's door, simply because there seemed to be no other suspects. The baby lived for only a year and now Cissy, stricken with tuberculosis, is dying as well. The elderly cousin who cared for Cissy has passed away and, because no decent woman will go to Roaring Abel's house, there's now no one nursing her. Abel gives his profane opinion of the "Christians" in Deerwood who shun his terminally ill daughter, much to Mrs. Stirling's horror as some of his words drift in the window... how can Valancy be listening to such shocking things?