Warren Maxwell pressures him to marry, so Hammond chooses his cousin, Blanche, who is desperate to get out of her house to escape her brother Charles. It is implied that Charles raped her when she was 13. After their wedding night, Hammond is sure that she is not a virgin—a claim Blanche denies. On their way back from their honeymoon, Hammond returns to the plantation where Ellen is kept and purchases her as his sex slave. Eventually, he comes to genuinely care for her.