The chapter opens with a flashback to the previous chapter, in which we learn that Starved's mother was a wealthy woman, and that she was in love with her father. Starved, however, was not aware of her father's past relationship with her mother, and she did not know of her own relationship with the father. She was also pregnant at the time, and Starved tried to have another child, but she was unable to bear the thought of losing her firstborn child, so she gave birth to her second child. She did not realize that her first child was the child of a wealthy man, and so she kept her marriage. She refused to leave the family, and died of a long illness after a number of years.