- We're back in the study where Old Ezra's portrait hangs.
- It's been a month since the last time we saw Orin, and it looks like he's taken a turn for the worse, as if he wasn't bad enough already.
- He looks way older—almost the spitting image of the portrait of Papa Mannon hanging above him. The fact he's dressed in black doesn't help. He's morphing in the opposite direction from his sister.
- Looking like an emaciated version of his dead dad, Orin sits in almost total darkness writing like crazy, with a bunch of papers piled up next to him.
- He's talking to the portrait of Ezra as he works, hinting that what he's writing is the full story of the Mannon clan and its sordid history.
- Lavinia tries to get in, but he's got the door locked.
- After she does some banging and yelling, Orin lets Lavinia in. He hides what he's been working on in a drawer and locks it.
- Always curious about what's new with her crack-pot brother, Lavinia asks what he's been doing.
- He says he's reading about crime and punishment in Ezra's old law books.
- Lavinia suspects something else is going on, but Orin denies it.
- She changes the subject, asking why he stays all locked up in the study with the shutters closed.
- He says he feels like he should be shut off from natural light—what he calls "God's light"—because that's the way the guilty are: doomed to wallow in their own darkness.
- We get the impression Lavinia's used to this.
- She just tells Orin she doesn't believe he's studying law and opens up the shutters to let the light in.
- It's night, and not a star's in the sky. (What was it Orin said about the guilty being cut off from God's light?)
- Lavinia tries to tell Orin she's just worried about his failing health.
- Orin implies that he's not going to die any time soon, no matter what his sister wants.
- Acting an awful lot like a nosy mommy, Lavinia mentions that she's glad he ate a decent-sized meal that night, and says that the walk he took with Hazel seemed to help.
- Orin says he hates the way Lavinia never leaves them alone.
- Being with Hazel, who's so good and thinks he's the same way, makes him feel guilty and hate himself even more.
- Not exactly the best recipe for a lasting relationship, which is a bummer, because Hazel and Orin are newly engaged.
- Lavinia admits to being afraid to leave them alone because Orin might confess to something.
- She tells him she's sick of his guilty conscience and wishes he would just get over it.
- When she adds that he should hate Christine for wanting to leave him and run off with another man, Orin says that's exactly what Lavinia plans on doing.
- Orin figures now is as good a time as any to tell Lavinia what he's been up to: writing an unfiltered, completely honest history of the Mannon family—one that leaves nothing out.
- He adds that he's trying to see if he can tell what awfulness is going to happen next to the Mannon clan, but he can't.
- Oh, and he also says that most of what he's written is about Lavinia.
- In response to Lavinia's shocked anger, Orin mentions that he saw Lavinia flirting with a random sailor on one of the ships on which they sailed, and he accuses her of being in love with Brant herself.
- He says that's really why she wanted to murder Christine.
- More denials from Lavinia. (We're never supposed to be completely sure she's being honest about this.)
- Orin brings up that islander Avahanni again. He accuses his sister of shameless behavior on the island.
- At first, Lavinia gets even more upset, but then she admits that she kissed him.
- The next part of their argument is almost a perfect repeat of the argument that Ezra and Christine have when Ezra finds out that she cheated. Orin screams at Lavinia, accusing her of being a whore and threatening to kill her.
- Orin's convinced that they've become their parents. Literally.
- Lavinia senses that something is off—and holy cow is she right—so she starts begging for it all to stop. That's Orin's craziness, the argument, everything.
- But, wouldn't you know it, it just keeps right on going, and Orin accuses her of trying to kill him, just like Christine tried to kill Ezra.
- Lavinia says that he's the one putting these thoughts into her head, and she keeps yelling at Orin to stop.
- Eventually she breaks down. Orin asks her to leave so he can keep working and she runs from the room in tears.