- So Tom is a total mess after Roxy's visit. He has a meltdown on the sofa, feeling like he's hit rock bottom being forced to kneel down to "a n***** wench."
- Scared stiff, Tom gets to the haunted house later that night. Roxy's waiting for him.
- Our narrator fills us in on some more details of the haunted house. Yeah, it's just as eerie as it sounds.
- Roxy wastes no time in dropping the bomb. She tells Tom that he isn't actually related to Driscoll and that he was born "a n***** en a slave!" She further explains that if she tells Driscoll that information, he will sell Tom down the river ASAP.
- Yeah, whatever. Tom doesn't believe her for a minute.
- Oh, but it's true. Roxy assures Tom that he is her son and that Chambers is the real Tom Driscoll, heir to the Driscoll fortune. She also tells him that she's put all of this in writing and left it in safe hands so that if she's ever killed, the information can still get to Driscoll.
- Baloney! Tom insists that she's lying.
- Roxy heads to the door, threatening to go directly to Driscoll. Tom begs her to stay.
- Okay, but Roxy's got a few conditions. For one thing, she tells Tom that he can't call her Roxy anymore, that he's got to call her ma or mammy and that she's going to be calling him Chambers from now on.
- Oh, and the narrator lets us in on the secret that Roxy actually lied to Tom about having all of this in writing.
- Roxy makes some more demands: Tom is to give her half of his allowance from Driscoll every single month. She asks how much he's in debt and he reveals the whopping sum of three hundred dollars.
- And just how does he plan to pay for the debt, Roxy wants to know? Um, he eventually tells her, by putting on a disguise and burglarizing the townspeople's homes.
- Hmm, that's not such a bad idea, Roxy thinks. She approves of Tom's scheme and even offers to help. But he tells her he'd feel safer if she left town.
- Roxy agrees to leave town, but says she'll be back to collect her money at the haunted house once a month.
- Oh, and one more thing. Roxy tells Tom that he'd better start treating her nicely. Like, kiss-her-butt nicely. He asks something of her, too: he wants to know who his real dad is.
- Roxy proudly tells him that the guy was one of the important dudes in the town who has since died, Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex (note: some readers with an eagle eye will recall that that this guy Cecil was mentioned in passing in the first chapter with the narrator telling us that "with him we have no concern." We were duped!).