Gone with the Wind Part V

Rhett jeers at Ashley because he is jealous of Scarlett's affection for him. He points out to her that his family threw him out years ago because of his wild ways, and he managed to make his own way in the world and became a successful businessman and blockade runner. Scarlett gives Ashley a job, as manager of the sawmill and she continues to visit the business, driving herself alone. One day, she is attacked by some men who are living rough on a lonely part of the road. She manages to get away, but Frank feels obliged to defend his wife after she has almost been molested by black men, so he and some other men in the town set out to punish them. Scarlett does not know what is happening, because she rarely takes any interest in anything outside her own life, but the other women do. Rhett turns up and tells Melanie and Scarlett that the Yankee officers who are ruling the town are aware that Frank and his friends are making an attack on the men who tried to assault Scarlett and that they are very angry at the rebellious act.. He tells them that he found out because he is friendly with the Yanks and plays cards with them, and he advises that he must know where they have gone so that he can try and get them out before the soldiers find them. Melanie tells him, and Rhett manages to rescue most of the men, except for Frank, who was shot. He gets his prostitute mistress Belle Watling to swear that the men were in her whorehouse that night, and the Yanks find they have no case. They are maliciously amused to believe that a group of Southerners spend one night a week at the brothel. However, Scarlett finds, to her horror that she has been widowed again. She gets very upset, not because she cared much for Frank, but because she feels guilt that he has died and that she took him from Sue Ellen when she did not love him. Rhett visits her and laughs at her grieving, telling her that she is not sorry that she wasn't always kind to Frank but its just that she's afraid of divine punishment. He tells her that she did what she had to do to keep Tara, and she would do the same thing again. Gradually she recovers.. and goes back to running her businesses. The local Confederate families dont like her much because she seems so heartless and she has been a greater success at making money than they have been. She also does business with Yankee soldiers and carpet baggers, even though she hates them for the war... whereas most Southerners avoid them.