- Chapter 2 begins with a quoted passage that isn't quite an epigraph—instead, it's a longish piece of prose by Randolph Henry Ash that Possession's narrator uses as a springboard into a brief history of Roland Mitchell's life.
- As the novel's narrator gives us the lowdown on Roland, we learn his age, his class background, and his current income, and we hear about his academic achievements, his physical appearance, and his perspective on the world in general.
- We also hear about Roland's lackluster relationship with his girlfriend, Val—a woman he's been dating since they were both college freshmen. For years, Roland has wanted to end things between them, but he can't figure out how to extricate himself from their tangled co-dependency.
- Next we hear about how when Roland gets home from his day's work of research and thievery at the London Library, he finds Val making a fancy supper for the two of them.
- This inspires another bout of descriptive passages from the narrator, who now tells us all about Roland and Val's apartment.
- Roland and Val share an awkward conversation over dinner, and the two of them eventually start to bicker.
- Roland does his best to pacify Val, and the two of them eventually head to bed.
- Later that night, Roland sneaks into the bathroom to take another look at the letters he stole from the London Library. As he reads them again and puzzles over them, he's seized with a determination to discover who their unnamed addressee had been.