After the encounter with Sondra, Clyde reconsiders his relationship with Roberta. Sondra decides to introduce Clyde into her social circle to spite Gilbert. She gets her friend, Jill Trumbull, to extend a party invitation to Clyde. Clyde worries that the Griffithses won’t approve and that Gilbert will be angry if he runs into Clyde at the party. Clyde decides to go to the party, even though it means skipping a date with Roberta.

At the party, Clyde is smartly dressed and happy that the rich young people are so welcoming. He lies about his family in Denver and claims that he may even leave the factory for better work elsewhere. Sondra arrives with another date who is just there as cover for her plan to foster a connection with Clyde. Sondra’s interest in Clyde intensifies since he seems to be more than just a poor relation. He considers lying about going to college when they begin telling stories about their college days.

When Clyde tries to monopolize Sondra on the dance floor, she teaches him that the proper form is to fill out her dance card to reserve dances with her. During their dances, Clyde flatters Sondra by telling her that he reads every society page item about her. He claims to be learning to play tennis when she says that she loves tennis. Clyde calls Sondra by her first name, leading Sondra to scold him for being too informal, given the setting. They later step outside to be alone for a few moments. Sondra tells Clyde to accept an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party in Schenectady because the party will be an overnight one that will allow them to spend more time together.

Sondra knows that her parents and friends see Clyde as bad boyfriend material because he is poor, but she likes Clyde. He doesn’t look or act poor. He is handsome, a good dancer, and a flatterer. She continues to get him invitations to friends’ parties. Sondra is coy when Clyde asks if she loves him. Meanwhile, Clyde skips dates with Roberta or arrives late. He tells her that these absences occur because of last-minute dinner invitations from Samuel. Roberta is understanding since Samuel is so crucial to Clyde’s prospects. She changes her mind when Clyde tells her that he won’t be able to spend New Year’s Eve with her. She wonders if their relationship is over.

Roberta plans a holiday visit to her family in Blitz so that she can meet Clyde on the journey there and back. When the day for the trip comes, Clyde sends her a note to say that he has to attend a surprise department meeting and can only meet with her briefly to exchange Christmas gifts. Clyde gives her a toiletry set that seems expensive to her untrained eyes. She believes that Clyde may care for her after all. She changes her mind when Clyde is evasive about the parties that he has attended and who was present. She knows that he is interested in several affluent young women. Clyde agrees to meet her on her return trip, but his unenthusiastic kiss tells her that he doesn’t really want to.

Roberta goes home to Blitz. She sees her family’s poverty through Clyde’s eyes and feels inadequate. Mrs. Alden can tell that Roberta is unhappy. She asks why Roberta moved out of the Newtons’ house. Roberta tells her that Grace was always around, preventing her from making friends. Roberta also shares that she is in a secret relationship with a supervisor. Later that evening, Roberta sees a society page item about Clyde attending a party. Sondra and others are also listed as attendees. The items says that Clyde will be attending a New Year’s Eve party in Schenectady.

Gilbert sees the same item as Roberta and is angry that Clyde is mingling with people above his station. Samuel finds Clyde’s unaided entry into the Griffithses’ social circle impressive; Clyde is meant for better things, and the family has been remiss in ignoring him. Elizabeth invites Clyde to attend the family’s informal Christmas luncheon. Clyde thinks that he can go to the luncheon and still make his way to Roberta later that night.

The luncheon goes well. Clyde follows Bella to another party instead of going to see Roberta immediately after. When Clyde finally shows up, he tells her that the luncheon was longer than he thought. Roberta confronts him with the newspaper item from the society page. Clyde claims that the newspaper must have gotten the facts or dates wrong. Roberta directly asks Clyde if he is attracted to Sondra. His answer is vague, but the general drift seems to be that he cares for Sondra. Roberta tells him that her class and family weigh against her when it comes to his love. Clyde insists that he loves her despite her background. They have sex. Roberta thinks that he may love her after all.

Sondra’s parents suspect that she is dating Clyde and threaten to take her on an extended tour to Europe. She continues seeing Clyde at friends’ parties and gives him money so that he won’t be embarrassed on outings. They get time alone one night after a party. Sondra takes Clyde home with her. Clyde declares his love for Sondra and tries to embrace her. She pushes him away but is excited by his show of strength. They do eventually kiss, but then Sondra tells him to leave. It feels like the relationship with Hortense all over again.

Clyde tells himself that he doesn’t owe Roberta anything since he never promised to marry her. He continues missing dates with her, convincing Roberta that she is of too low a class to hold on to Clyde. Clyde and Roberta still have sex sporadically, and since they rely on the withdrawal method for contraception, Roberta becomes pregnant. Both are too ignorant to know that help with contraception and termination is available from the three midwives in the part of town where the immigrant workers live. Roberta thinks that Clyde is a sophisticated man who can help her. Clyde panics. Abortion is illegal, and word of mouth is the only way to find a pharmacist or doctor who will help them. Clyde merely asking about an abortion is sure to get back to the Griffithses. Clyde also has little money beyond what Sondra gives him. He carries on as if Roberta isn’t pregnant.

Clyde goes to Schenectady to find abortion pills. He tells the pharmacists that he is a married man who is too poor to support a child. Most reject him since dispensing abortifacients is illegal and because they believe that Clyde is immoral. When Clyde does get some pills from a pharmacist, he forgets the instructions on how to consume the pills. Roberta is impressed when he returns with the pills, but Clyde’s reserved manner makes her believe that he intends to stop seeing her.

The pills don’t work, and the pharmacist refuses to sell Clyde more pills when he realizes that Clyde isn’t a married man. An abortion is their only hope. Clyde tells Roberta that he will find a doctor. Roberta should go alone and wear her shabbiest clothes to avoid exposing Clyde’s role and to encourage the doctor to perform the abortion for little or no money. Roberta can’t believe how poorly Clyde treats her. She feels a whisper of contempt for him.

Weeks go by, and Clyde still doesn’t have the name of a doctor who can perform an abortion. He finally asks a men’s clothier in town for a name, claiming that one of his subordinates is too poor to have children and needs to secure an abortion for his wife. The clothier perceives Clyde as a privileged Griffiths, and he knows that Clyde socializes with Sondra. The clothier assumes that Sondra is the one who needs an abortion. Hoping to secure favor with the Griffithses, he tells Clyde that Dr. Glenn, a doctor in a nearby town, may be able to help.

Roberta goes to see Dr. Glenn. He wants to avoid the complications of dealing with the desperate young women who ask for his help. They are nothing but trouble and may well lead to him getting arrested or losing his license. He has performed abortions in the past for young women from good families, by which he means affluent people who share his faith. He tells Roberta that childbirth is a natural and godly consequence of sex with one’s husband, so Roberta should keep the pregnancy. He is sure that things will work out if she does. She may not even be pregnant.

Roberta misses another period. Clyde forces her to return to Dr. Glenn, who refuses to help her, especially after he realizes that she isn’t married. Roberta demands that Clyde marry her, even temporarily, to avoid the stigma of being unmarried and pregnant. Clyde won’t budge because, he claims, he will lose his job. Roberta believes that his refusal has to do with Sondra, so she gives Clyde an ultimatum: If he can’t find a doctor on his next attempt, he will marry her immediately. Clyde offers a counterproposal: Roberta can leave town and have the baby. Clyde will send her money to help with her birth expenses and stay in town to pursue his ambitions. Roberta is shocked by his callousness. Clyde knows that he is in the wrong, but his ambition overrides every fine emotion.

Clyde spins a fantastical vision of how rich and stable his life will be if he can marry Sondra; he is particularly excited by the prospect of having Gilbert treat him as a peer. His desperation over Roberta’s pregnancy intensifies. When Roberta reaches her breaking point, he says that he will marry her as long as she goes away now to have the baby and agrees to a divorce as soon as the baby is born. Roberta believes that it is marriage now or nothing at all from Clyde, but she goes along with it because she is desperate.

Roberta sees Clyde talking to one of the rich young women in her car in town one day. The woman is well-dressed and beautiful, while Clyde is carefree and at ease. For the first time, Roberta grows angry that Clyde and women like the one in the car have such easy lives. On a day trip by car with his friends, Clyde has to stop at the Alden house to ask for directions. Titus Alden, Roberta’s father, is a beaten man whose body, shoes, and house are evidence of his poverty. Clyde swears that he will never end up like this, especially when he has a chance to marry a woman like Sondra.

Clyde is consumed with the problem of how to see Sondra when summer comes. When Clyde does think of Roberta, it is to wonder if she will expose him. Sick and unable to hide changes to her body, Roberta goes home to her family in Blitz. Clyde encourages her to take some of her little savings to purchase wedding and honeymoon clothes from a dressmaker. She knows that her marriage will be a sham, but she wants the trappings of marriage.

Clyde receives two letters. One from Sondra is full of baby talk, Sondra’s preferred voice for wooing Clyde. She describes the luxury of her surroundings and pastimes at Twelfth Lake; she has convinced the Cranstons to invite Clyde to their summer home, which is near the Finchleys’ summer home. The second letter is from Roberta. She describes the dreariness of her home and her low mood. Clyde reads a newspaper story about a couple believed to have drowned while on a boat trip to rural Pennsylvania. Rescuers recovered the woman’s body but have so far found only the hat of the man. Who is to say that the man isn’t alive somewhere? Clyde thinks about how convenient it would be if the same kind of accident happened to Roberta. Clyde feels horrified that he would even think such a thing.

Clyde doesn’t respond to Roberta’s many letters because she might show them to Samuel or Gilbert. They talk briefly by phone a few times. Clyde claims that he is saving money and will come to Blitz to marry her any day now. Clyde visits Sondra at the Cranstons’ summer home at Twelfth Lake. Sondra tells him that she will do anything to keep Clyde, even if it means eloping when she comes of age in the fall. Clyde wants to run away now, but Sondra refuses. His desperate tone seems odd to her, but Clyde tells her that it is only his passion speaking.

Roberta’s parents know that something is wrong, especially since Roberta seems physically ill. She writes to Clyde that he needs to come for her no later than the third because it is becoming obvious that she is pregnant. Clyde misses this letter because he is at Twelfth Lake. During a side trip to the isolated Big Bittern Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, Clyde recalls the newspaper article. The isolated coves, lakes, and islands of the Adirondack Mountains remind him of the story of the drowned couple. Roberta writes again to say that she plans to return to Lycurgus because it is clear that he is stringing her along. Clyde calls to promise that he will come in two weeks. His life is one of extremes. One moment he is thinking of his glorious future with Sondra, and the next he is thinking about how to kill Roberta.

Clyde is consumed by a “darker self” (206) that encourages him to kill Roberta and make her death appear to be an accident. He makes a detailed plan to kill Roberta, fake his own death, and obscure their identity so that no one suspects the truth. Clyde calls Roberta and, using sweet talk and a soothing manner, tells her that he wants them to go on a trip and get married.

On July 6, Roberta and Clyde travel separately to Utica, the first stop on their journey to Big Bittern. Clyde is grim, but Roberta feels more hopeful because she believes that Clyde is finally going to come through for her. He might even grow to love her once they marry and have the baby. Clyde shares travel brochures from Lycurgus House and manipulates Roberta into choosing Big Bittern as their destination. He buys a second hat so that he can leave one in the lake.

On the trip out to Big Bittern, Clyde has to sign hotel registers several times. He has to use false names that match the initials on his camera case, which he uses to disguise the bag with the change of clothes that he will need after he drowns Roberta. Roberta has to leave her coat at one stop because she is too hot. It has a signed and addressed letter to her mother in the pocket. The man who drives them out is one whom Clyde encountered on a day trip with his rich friends. The couple rows out to a small island on an isolated lake. Clyde has second thoughts. He sets up the camera and takes a few pictures of Roberta, who is happy. On the way back, Clyde gets angry when Roberta reaches out to embrace him. He strikes her (perhaps harder than he intended), which causes the camera to hit her in the face. Clyde capsizes the boat when he jumps up to help her. The boat strikes Roberta on the head, stunning her. Clyde swims ashore rather than heeding Roberta’s call for help. She drowns. Clyde leaves the camera at the bottom of the lake, hides his tripod, dries off, and begins making his way to Twelfth Lake by foot and steamboat.