Linda escapes from Mr. Flint's plantation and heads for her grandmother's house, where she persuades Sally, "a faithful friend," to help her reach the home of another friend, who hides her in a closet. After hiding at her friend's home for a week, Linda's pursuers come into close vicinity. She flees, terrified of being discovered, and hides for two hours in some nearby bushes, where she is bitten by a poisonous reptile. In excruciating pain, she returns to her friend's house, where she is treated with homemade medicine.
Meanwhile, Linda has contacted some of her relatives, who advise her to return to her master, beg his forgiveness, and accept her punishment. But when her friend informs her family of the pain and suffering Linda has endured in her struggle to remain free, they stop trying to convince her to go back. Desperate to help Linda, her grandmother enlists the aid of a woman she has known since childhood, who offers to help her escape and agrees to let her stay at her home until she can get to the Free States. The woman arranges for her cook, Betty, to meet Linda at a designated place and bring her to her home. When Linda receives the message to meet "a friend" at a secret location, she is surprised to discover that the "friend" is Betty. Betty escorts her back to her mistresses' house, brings her supper, and shows her to her new hiding place: an old storage room.
Linda learns that Dr. Flint has had her brother, William, her children, and her aunt (who has served the Flint family for over 20 years) arrested, hoping to force them into revealing her hiding place. Devastated that her actions are causing her family so much suffering, Linda considers turning herself in, until she receives a note from her brother, begging her to stay put and convincing her that turning herself in now would only serve to further endanger her family.
