It is six months since Greg, Agnes and Jack left Whitecross. Seth finds Jack wandering in a fever in some woods and takes him back to his home to look after him. There finds that Jack has letters for Charles and Jenny which are from Greg. Charles, Pet, Jenny, Hubert and the children have moved from Whitecross to Challoner. When they learn the news about the letters, Jenny and Charles go to Seth's home. Jack is delirious and says some unintelligible things about a place called Wellingham, where he and Greg had been. A distraught Jenny is desperate to see Greg again, so she and Charles head off to Wellingham. Pet also sends Hubert on after them. After rescuing a man staked out in the woods and meeting the authoritarian Clifford and the sinister Miedel, Jenny and Charles become worried about the situation in which they have become embroiled...