Molly's burial, like her death, is told but not seen. Her passing creates no stir in the world portrayed in the novel, and it is not allowed to disturb the reader. Silas and the child remain the focus of attention.
The time of this section stretches from the burial to some indeterminate point apparently several years later. In its course the full nature of the miracle becomes apparent. Eliot now gives a central statement of that which has been shown — the child represents the beginning of human contacts for Silas: ". . . as the weeks grew to months, the child created fresh and fresh links between his life and the lives from which he had hitherto shrunk continually into narrower isolation." From the beginning, Silas has felt this miraculous nature of the child. He tells Dolly, "Yes — the door was open. The money's gone I don't know where, and this is come from I don't know where." Now the child causes love to grow within him, and at the same time he finds love, or at least friendliness, among other men. Note particularly that "no child was afraid of approaching Silas when Eppie was near him." Recall that when Silas was first seen, his gaze was enough to make "small scoundrels . . . take to their legs in terror." His outlook has changed, and so has theirs.
There is further notice taken that Eppie helps Silas to remember the past he had forgotten. Once again there is the connection with his little sister, for she had the same name. Then, too, he begins to go out, to notice the world again, and he remembers "the once familiar herbs . . . with their unchanged outline and markings." Before his flight to Raveloe, Silas felt that the world was changed. Now he finds that it is still the same, but that he had changed.
