Horatio rents a cottage in a beautiful, idyllic plane three miles from Richmond. Clotel is aware “that a union with her proscribed race was unrecognised by law” (64), and she tells him that if their “mutual love” and his “own conscience” (64) are not enough to keep him faithful to her, she would not try to hold him “by a single fetter” (65).

The two live “as happily as circumstances permit” (65) in their cottage, “secluded from the world” (65). Clotel gives birth to a girl named Mary, whose “complexion was still lighter than her mother” (65). As Mary grows into a great beauty, Horatio spends less and less time at home. Clotel, despite the beauty of her surroundings, which are “so well adapted to her poetic spirit” (65), suffers “anxious thoughts and fearful foreboding” (65) as a result of the precariousness of their happiness. She expresses to Horatio her desire for the family to move to France or England. Horatio is tempted by this idea; however, as he is becoming more politically active, he prefers to stay in America, where he can nurture his “ambition to become a statesman” (66).

Horatio becomes politically connected with a wealthy man who has a daughter named Gertrude.