The chapter opens with a description of a former delinquent farmer who has returned to the country. He tells his wife, Roxane, that he wants to marry her because she agreed to marry him when she returned home, but she doesn't know that he's divorced. He's worried that she's going to get sick of him and run away, so he suggests that he propose marriage to her. She's not going to refuse, he says, but he'll have to show her some "honesty" before she'll let him go. He promises to support him "through thick and thin" .