A suitor and his cousin try to take advantage of the protagonist's naiveté by getting her to go swimming with them. Chaperones foil their plans at first. The suitor and the protagonist do eventually have consensual sexual encounters. Later, when the suitor finds out a secret about the protagonist, he changes his mind about marrying her and tries to coerce her into being his mistress instead. When the protagonist declines, he becomes possessive of her, literally saying that she belongs to him. He forces her to sleep in the same bed with him non-sexually during the climax. The tone of this scene is tense and uncomfortable. She eventually kills him to keep him from shooting a loved one.