In Chapter 1, Scarlett is very worried about the future of Tara. She knows she cannot make ends meet and pay taxes with the little money she is left with. Scarlett and Ashley spend some time alone for the first time since he came back. Ashley tells her she should ask Rhett Butler for economic aid and Scarlett, hopeless and shattered, breaks into tears. He tries to comfort her and they end up kissing. Ashley finally tells her that he loves her but that he cannot leave his family. In Chapter 2, Scarlett is shocked by the unexpected visit of a couple: Jonas Wilkerson, their former plantation manager and Emmy Slattery, their former servant who made her mother fall down with typhoid. Now married, they want to buy Tara for peanuts and Scarlett cannot but kick
them out. Scared to death, Scarlett decides to seduce Rhett into marrying her. Once in his hometown, Scarlett learns that Rhett is in prison for having killed a black
man and shocked by the atrocities the Ku Klux Klan are committing. In Chapter 3, Scarlett visits Rhett in prison making everybody believe she is his sister. She pretends that Tara is better than ever and that she has a lot of
money. She tries to appeal to him in such a flirtatious way that he soon starts suspecting she has a hidden agenda. When he sees her broken nails, he confirms she has been lying and she is made to confess to him the real purpose of her visit. Scarlett tells him that she is willing to be his lover for three hundred dollars but, to her astonishment, he turns her down.