The farm is going deeper and deeper into debt. Joan Oakly tells us how, amid all this, she met a strange old man deep in her swamp, who offered her a loan. She does not use the loan wisely, buying ever newer machines, and the debt mounts to such a pitch that King steps in and declares the debt absolved....if title is transferred to him. Then she kills him. The old man, Jonas King, has a son, Josue King. He has given over to him everything he has, and yet King does not seem to be dead. Or is this only Joan's guilty imagination?