As Anna discovers a will to live in spite of the ordeal, she seeks to comfort Mompellion, and they are drawn together in equal desire and desperation for each other. After they make love, Mompellion confesses his own dark secret regarding his relationship with Elinor (He admits to never having sexual relations with his wife because of a sin she committed earlier in life), and Anna is repulsed. She flees, and finds the newly returned Elizabeth Bradford, who confesses that her mother is in labour with a bastard child and sure to die. Anna goes with Elizabeth and is able to safely deliver the baby. As the Colonel would not permit the bastard child to live, Anna offers to take the child and leave the village permanently.