Months go by and Mrs Rymer becomes good friends with Joe Welsh, a widowed farmhand. They enjoy the lambing season in Spring, walks in the Summer and the harvest in October. It is on the eighth of that month, and almost a year has passed since her new life started, when she looks up from her work in the vegetable patch and sees Pyne watching her from over a fence. She starts to curse him and he admits to all the deceptions. He agrees that Hannah Moorhouse never existed and tells her that Mrs Gardner is in on the act. Pyne has had Mrs Rymer's power of attorney for the past year and her fortune has been safe and actually improved in the interim. He asks her a simple question: "Are you happy?"