Mr. Chester is leisurely getting dressed to go out one evening and reading Lord Chesterfield’s book of advice when a visitor is announced. Mr. Chester’s first thought is that it could be a creditor coming out of normal hours to catch him. When he learns it is Hugh from the Maypole, he orders him to be shown in after he has thoroughly cleaned his shoes. Hugh enters, accompanied by his dog. He presents the letter he took from Dolly Varden. Mr. Chester accepts it and asks what else Hugh took from the girl. Hugh at first replies that he took only a kiss, but he finally admits that he also took a bracelet (which Mr. Chester had already heard was also stolen). Hugh tries to give it to him, but Mr. Chester tells him to keep it—he is not a thief. Mr. Chester reads the letter from Emma Haredale to his son and then burns it. He asks Hugh about his father, but Hugh proclaims that he never had one. His mother was hanged in front of a crowd of two thousand men when he was six. Mr. Chester dismisses him, orders the room to be fumigated, and leaves in his sedan chair.

The next morning, Mr. Chester is visited by Simon Tappertit, who comes in wearing his leather apron and carrying a large lock. Mr. Chester asks him to set the lock outside the door so as not to bring the scent of oil into the room. Sim tells Mr. Chester that Dolly is now acting as a go-between for Edward and Emma. Moreover, Joe Willet has set himself up as a sworn enemy of Mr. Chester. This is known by Mrs. Rudge and Barnaby as well as Miggs. Sim urges Mr. Chester to destroy Joe Willet.

Mrs. Rudge and Barnaby arrive in Chigwell; they go directly to the Warren to avoid the possibility of Mrs. Rudge’s meeting anyone from the time before the murder of Reuben Haredale. Mr. Haredale greets her in the garden and welcomes her back after twenty years. He hopes that she plans to come back to the Warren, but she abruptly tells him that she is rejecting the annuity he has set up for her upon her husband’s “death,” and she is moving out of her house in London. Her future location must remain a secret. She is no longer sure to what uses her money might be made, and she cannot remain where she can be found. Mr. Haredale is confused, but Mrs. Rudge refuses to tell him more. She and Barnaby leave to make their way back to London.

Mr. Haredale consults Gabriel Varden about the mystery of Mrs. Rudge. Gabriel tells Mr. Haredale of the strange visitor on the night when he took the wounded Edward Chester to her house. They speculate that Mrs. Rudge may have secretly married a scoundrel and is now trying to escape him. They journey to her house in London but find Mr. Chester there. He tells Mrs. Rudge’s two friends that he has bought her out and got rid of her for aiding the liaison between Edward and Emma.