Back in New Orleans, Tom has duties formerly assigned to Adolph, who has been stealing too much from St. Clare. Tom worries about the state of St. Clare’s soul, specifically about his occasional drinking bouts, and finally speaks to his master about this, obtaining St. Clare’s promise to mend his ways.
A woman named Prue, who sells hot bread to the St. Clare kitchen, complains about her hard life. Tom hears Prue’s story (she was forced to allow her last child to die) and reports it to Eva, who is deeply affected. A few days later, the kitchen staff learns that Prue has been beaten for drunkenness and has died of her injuries. Ophelia, hearing this, asks St. Clare if there is nothing he can do; he tells her that the law will not intervene in such a case. Ophelia asks him how he can defend such a system, and he answers that he does not defend it. For the first time, Ophelia is able to get her cousin to discuss the subject of slavery seriously.
St. Clare’s opinion about slavery can be summed up as follows: I have inherited this wrong and can do nothing to right it. People with power always have and always will make unfair use of those without power, and the system of slavery in the southern United States is only one example, albeit an extreme example, of that truth. My efforts to end the system would do no good. Thus, the best I can do is to behave as humanely as possible within the system, treating the slaves I “possess” as well as possible and not blaming them for the faults that the system imposes upon them.
In Chapter XX, St. Clare brings home a small black girl of eight or nine years, whom he presents to Ophelia. His cousin is none too pleased, but St. Clare says the little girl, called Topsy, was being abused by her owners who were using her as help in their tavern. After Ophelia cleans the child up, she finds that Topsy’s back is covered with scars and calluses from beatings. She dresses the child and begins to question her, only to find that Topsy knows absolutely nothing about her own history or anything else. She was raised, she says, by a speculator; the servant Jane explains that children are often taken as infants and raised for the market.
In Chapter XXI, the scene shifts back to the Shelby farm in Kentucky. Mrs. Shelby tells her husband that Chloe has heard from Tom, and she asks when he will be able to buy Tom back. Shelby says it is not possible. Chloe, having overheard, tells Mrs. Shelby that she knows of a confectioner in Louisville who would hire her at a good wage, and Mrs. Shelby agrees that Chloe may go.
