Kit listens as Lenora describes the aftermath of Virginia’s childbirth and grows horrified by how much Virginia suffered. Lenora says Winston Hope refused to help, so Miss Baker made a deal to take the baby away in exchange for money and a car, intending at first to reunite mother and child later. Lenora reveals Miss Baker fled to Canada with the baby, later wrote after the murders, and kept raising him herself, which convinces Kit that Carter cannot be Virginia’s son and removes one motive Kit had suspected Lenora of having.

Kit angrily argues that Lenora should have protected Virginia and kept mother and child together, but Lenora insists separation was merciful because Virginia was disabled and, in Lenora’s view, also a murderer. Kit challenges that accusation by raising the possibility that Ricardo Mayhew was Virginia’s lover and the baby’s father. Lenora dismisses the idea, and Archie arrives to explain why: Ricardo was Archie’s secret lover, and Archie says Ricardo was with him in the garage rooms during the murders.

Archie recounts that he and Ricardo met in secret because such a relationship would have ruined them if exposed. On the night of the murders, Ricardo told Archie that Berniece had accused him of sleeping with Lenora and had pressured him after the blackmail of Winston Hope, even though Lenora says she barely knew him. Ricardo wanted Archie to run away west with him, but Archie refused because Berniece had also seen Virginia pregnant, meaning scandal was coming and Virginia would need Archie’s loyalty; Ricardo left, and Archie never saw him again.

Archie then clarifies that “Ricky” was not Ricardo at all but only a seasonal local boy whom Virginia had called by a nickname, making him impossible to trace later. That revelation leaves Kit disappointed and conflicted, because it strips away another possible explanation and strengthens the case against Virginia. Still, Kit asks why Lenora and Archie are so certain Virginia killed her parents, and Lenora says that after Miss Baker left with the baby, Lenora saw Virginia come out of her room and descend the Grand Stairs carrying a knife.

The chapter closes with Virginia’s own account of that moment. Weak and in pain after giving birth, Virginia takes the knife that had cut the cord, hobbles downstairs, and hears Winston arguing with Ricky in the billiard room. After pausing at the family portraits and rejecting the false image of the Hope family, Virginia decides she will leave Hope’s End with her baby and admits that, if necessary, she is prepared to kill to make that happen.