Jack Burden pursues his doctorate while simultaneously seeking refuge from the present by hiding in the past of a distant ancestor. Cass Mastern was his great-uncle; his personal effects were sent to Jack by another relative, which prompted him to do his dissertation on Mastern’s life. Mastern was lifted out of poverty by his brother Gilbert, who had him educated and taught him to run a plantation on his own. He then pursues higher education in Transylvania, where he meets the businessman Duncan Trice and his wife Annabelle. After a year of niceties, Annabelle and Mastern begin an affair that is eventually discovered by Duncan, who takes off his wedding ring and shoots himself in his library. The death is ruled an accident – but the removal of the ring was meant to show his wife that the real reason for his suicide was her betrayal. An enslaved woman, Phebe, finds the ring while she is making the bed and looks at Annabelle with accusing eyes. Unable to bear the shame of being looked at like this, Annabelle sells Phebe in Paducah just to be rid of her. She puts the dead man’s ring on Mastern’s finger. Shocked at the consequences of his terrible sin, Mastern leaves to try and secure Phebe’s freedom. He is unable to do so, and he goes back home to free all the enslaved people on his plantation. Gilbert laughs at him for his ‘foolishness’ and Mastern gives up, ultimately taking up arms for the Confederacy. He does not intend to kill anyone; being already burdened with the guilt of Duncan’s suicide, Mastern simply waits for his death. Eventually he is shot in Atlanta, and his last letter is sent to his brother. Jack Burden, reading this account in the journal, realizes that he cannot understand Mastern’s world until he understands Mastern. He walks to the kitchen to drink water instead of his usual shot of alcohol.