And so, after arrangements had been made, Roman was told that he was to leave Beulah Land and go with Driscoll Proctor to Philadelphia to try his fortune there. On Monday he would leave on the train with Proctor and his other charge, Adam Davis, going first to Savannah, then by coastal steamer to Norfolk. There he would wait for Proctor to see Adam properly installed at the university in Charlottesville and return. He and Proctor then would proceed, by boat again, to Philadelphia. Leon brought him a trunk and traveling bags and gave five hundred dollars into Driscoll Proctor’s keeping. He was to use whatever was necessary for Roman’s traveling expenses, and to give him the remainder, which would certainly be the major portion of it, to start life in the strange city.

Roman’s mind was a jumble. He had no feeling of guilt or regret over killing a man, even though that man was his half-brother. The kinship they shared derived from one who did not love him; the other half of Alonzo was from a man Roman hated and who hated him. The only important thing to Roman was the fact that Sarah had been violated. His rage had little to do with the specifically sexual nature of the act; he’d have felt the same way if her attacker had merely touched her person with violent intention. He could have killed him a thousand times without feeling that the scales had been balanced.

As to going away, his initial resentment of the coercion involved was very soon assuaged by the prospect of travel and change, of having the company of his old idol Adam Davis for a part of the journey, and then of going on to a place he knew himself to be welcome, with the friend whose love he hoped never to exhaust. Lovey packed his clothes and books into the trunk and cases Leon had bought. For the first time since his birth Lovey approved of Roman and treated him with respect and consideration. To her, he had with one action justified having been misbegotten and having lived what she considered to be a useless, pampered life.