Kmita returns to Vodokty with his troops and has to confess to how he mistreated the guilty at Upita e.g. ordering one hundred blows for the town's mayor and councillors. The couple quarrel and he resolves to dismiss his companions who she says are a bad influence on him. At Lyubich he finds the bodies of his murdered colleagues and, in revenge, burns the village of Volmontovichi to the ground. Kmita has to seek refuge with Olenka and she forces him to flee.