- As the title of Part III, "Winter Memories," tells us, winter has come to the Divide. The narrator describes the barren, cold landscape as "dead," looking an awful lot like it will never come back to life again (3.1.1).
- Life has gone back to normal for Alexandra. She gets letters from Emil. She hasn't seen her other brothers since Carl left. To avoid seeing them, she has started going to a different church, or going with Marie Shabata to the Catholic church. She never talks to Marie about the conflict with her brothers, sensing that she won't understand.
- All the same, Alexandra still has the chance to spend time with old Mrs. Lee. She sends Ivar to bring her over from Lou and Annie's, and they spent a week together patching and quilting, as Mrs. Lee tells stories from her childhood, sometimes confusing them with stories she reads in the newspaper.
- One day, when Frank goes off to town, Marie calls Alexandra on the phone and invites her and Mrs. Lee over for coffee. The two of them arrive at the Shabatas' in the afternoon.
- Mrs. Lee shows off her new apron, which she's just finished embroidering. Then she goes and takes her place in a rocking chair at the table, which is set for three with a white tablecloth and a vase of geraniums. Mrs. Lee asks how Marie is able to keep them from freezing.
- Marie shows them her window-shelves where she keeps her flowers indoors, and tells them how she tries to keep the fire going all night so they stay warm, or surrounds them with newspapers to insulate them. Then, changing the subject, she asks Alexandra whether she's heard anything from Carl recently.
- Alexandra replies that he sent her a box of orange flowers from California, but that she supposes she won't hear from him now until the spring. She tells Marie that she has a bunch of Emil's letters to give to her.
- Then, after reminiscing a bit about the first time she saw Marie, when Emil's kitten got stuck up on the telegraph pole, she asks Marie when she is planning to send Emil his Christmas present.
- Marie gives Alexandra a purple silk necktie that she knit for Emil, and says to tell him that it's for when he goes "serenading" the Mexican ladies (3.1.14).
- Alexandra doubts that he goes serenading that much, but, tossing her head defiantly, Marie says she isn't convinced.
- Marie takes a tray of delicate baked goods out of the oven and serves them to the two ladies.
- As Mrs. Lee eats her pastry and drinks her coffee, Marie and Alexandra talk. Marie admits that she had been crying just before the last time they spoke on the phone. Frank had been out late that night, and she was lonely.
- Later on, Mrs. Lee goes to take a nap, and Marie and Alexandra rummage around the house to find the crochet patterns the old lady wants to borrow. While Alexandra looks in one closet, she comes across Frank's old yellow cane from his flashy, younger days.
- Marie admits that he used to walk around with it, and Alexandra says he must have looked funny with it.
- Marie says it suited him, then. But now, she realizes that Frank is out of place and that he married the wrong woman.
- According to Marie, she's not the right woman for Frank, that she was spoiled and always wants her way, and that Frank doesn't like when she talks back to him.
- Marie's problem, in Frank's eyes, is that her universe doesn't revolve around him. It might have in the beginning, but things have changed, she tells Alexandra.
- Alexandra isn't sure much good will come of letting Marie keep on like this, so she goes back to talking about the patterns they're looking for.
- When they head back to the kitchen and Marie puts Frank's cane away, Alexandra notices that she has tears in her eyes.
- It has started to snow, so Alexandra and Mrs. Lee take off. Now Marie is alone with the bundle of Emil's letters.
- Though his letters are addressed to his sister, Marie can tell that they were really intended for herself. The descriptions of Mexico are too rich, and the content is too personal for a letter a young man would write to his sister. They are the kind of letter a guy writes when he wants to impress a girl.
- From now on, whenever she is alone, Marie thinks about Emil's adventures in Mexico. She thinks how nice to must be to explore the world. But her own life is "done and over" at age 23 (3.1.40).
- And she thinks about Frank, about how he might still be free like Emil if they hadn't gotten married. She realizes that their marriage isn't all that great for him, either. Maybe she's been imagining that he's worse than he really is.
- Later that winter, the narrator continues, Alexandra begins to think of this visit with Marie as the last good one. Marie seems to withdraw more and more and to be brooding about something that she doesn't want to talk about. At the same time, bad weather also means they get to see less and less of one another.
- As for Marie, she spends more time with her neighbor, Mrs. Hiller, who lives alone with her lame son, and continues to go to the Catholic church in the French country. She tries to let the church fill the emptiness she feels in her heart.
- Frank has hired a new farmhand, and they spend many evenings playing cards. Marie finds herself more and more thinking about the wintry world outside, about the snow falling, and the hardened branches of the frozen trees.
- And yet, the narrator goes on, somewhere deep down under the ground, "the secret of life" continues, ready to reemerge in spring (3.1.42).