1. Duncan Trice kills himself after discovering the infidelity
1.1. "My friend had learned the truth.. and had drawn the gold ring from his finger... had put it beneath her pillow and had gone down and shot himself."
2. Annabelle sells Phebe in Paducah after she realizes that news of the affair has reached her
2.1. "She will tell. All of them will know. All of them in the house will look at me and know."
3. In a spur of the moment decision, Cass decides to betray Annabelle by going to Paducah to set Phebe free
3.1. 'If you do, I shall never see you again."
4. Cass fails to retrieve Phebe and realizes that he has made a mistake. Wounded and depressed, he returns to Mississippi.
4.1. "Sometimes the very fact of damnation because of suicide seemed to be the very reason for suicide."
5. Cass Mastern joins the war effort hoping to die. He gets his wish after taking a bullet.
5.1. "Remember me, but without grief. If one of us is lucky, it is I.."
6. Jack Burden digs out the "Case of the Upright Judge" and begins to tell a story about Cass Mastern and his own life many years before.
6.1. "Not that the first excursion has anything directly to do with the story of Willie Stark, but it has a great deal to do with Jack Burden, and the story of Willie Stark and the story of Jack Burden are, in a sense, one story"
7. Jack is asked by his professor to edit the journals of Cass Mastern and write a biographical essay/social study on it.
7.1. "It seemed easy at first. It was easy to reconstruct the life of the log cabin in the red hills."
8. It is discovered that Gilbert Mastern gifted a small plantation to Cass
8.1. "When Gilbert gave him a small plantation, he managed it for two years with such astuteness that at the end of the time he could repay Gilbert a substantial part of the purchase price."
9. Cass Mastern and the wife of Duncan Trice, Annabelle, begin an affair.
9.1. "Cass would be admitted, late at night to the house... He actually lay in the very bed belonging to Duncan Trice.
10. Duncan Trice brings Cass under his wing and introduced him to the bottle, the gaming table and the racecourse.
10.1. "Members of the Trice circle led Cass first to the illicit sweetness."
