She did not even look at him when he passed her.
Nor did he overtake Miss Coldfield and the Negro.
It was too dark to go fast, thought he could presently hear them ahead of him.
She was not using the flashlight now; he remembered how he thought,
"Surely she cant be afraid to show a light now."
But she was not using it and he wondered if she were holding to the Negro's arm now; he wondered that until he heard the Negro's voice, flat, without emphasis or interest:
"Wawkin better over here" and no answer from her, though he was close enough now to hear (or believe he did) her whimpering panting breath.
Then he heard the other sound and he knew that she had stumbled and fallen; he could almost see the hulking slack-faced Negro stopped in his tracks, looking toward the sound of the fall, waiting, without interest or curiosity, as he (Quentin) hurried forward, hurried toward the voices:
'You, nigger!
What's your name?"
'Calls me Jim Bond."
'Help me up!
You aint any Sutpen!
You don't have to leave me lying in the dirt!"
When he stopped the buggy at her gate she did not offer to get out alone this time.
She sat there until he got down and came round to her side; she still sat there, clutching the umbrella in one hand and the hatchet in the other, until he spoke her name.
Then she stirred; he helped, lifted her down; she was almost as light as Clytie had been; when she moved it was like a mechanical doll, so that he supported and led her through the gate and up the short walk and into the dollsized house and turned on the light for her and looked at the fixed sleep-walking face, the wide dark eyes as she stood there, still clutching the umbrella and the hatchet, the shawl and the black dress both stained with dirt where she had fallen, the black bonnet jerked forward and awry by the shock of the fall.
'Are you all right now?" he said.
'Yes,' she said.
'Yes. I'm all right.
Goodnight."—"Not thank you," he thought: "Just goodnight," outside the house now, breathing deep and fast now as he returned to the buggy, finding that he was about to begin to run, thinking quietly,
"Jesus.
Jesus.
Jesus," breathing fast and hard of the dark dead furnace-breath of air, of night where the fierce aloof stars hung.
His own home was dark; he was still using the whip when he turned into the lane and then into the stable lot.
He sprang out and took the mare from the buggy, stripping the harness from her and tumbling it into the harness room without stopping to hang it up, sweating, breathing fast and hard; when he turned at last toward the house he did begin to run.
He could not help it.
He was twenty years old; he was not afraid, because what he had seen out there could not harm him, yet he ran; even inside the dark familiar house, his shoes in his hand, he still ran, up the stairs and into his room and began to undress, fast, sweating, breathing fast.
"I ought to bathe," he thought: then he was lying on the bed, naked, swabbing his body steadily with the discarded shirt, sweating still, panting: so that when, his eye-muscles aching and straining into the darkness and the almost dried shirt still clutched in his hand, he said
"I have been asleep" it was all the same, there was no difference: waking or sleeping he walked down that upper hall between the scaling walls and beneath the cracked ceiling, toward the faint light which fell outward from the last door and paused there, saying
"No.
No" and then
"Only I must.
I have to" and went in, entered the bare, stale room whose shutters were closed too, where a second lamp burned dimly on a crude table; waking or sleeping it was the same; the bed, the yellow sheets and pillow, the wasted yellow face with closed, almost transparent eyes on the pillow, the wasted hands, crossed on the breast as if he were already a corpse; waking or sleeping it was the same and would be the same forever as long as he lived: And you are—?
Henry Sutpen.
And you have been here—?
Four years.
And you came home—?
To die.
Yes.
To die-?
Yes.
To die.
And you have been here—?
Four years.
And you are—?
Henry Sutpen.
It was quite cold in the room now; the chimes would ring for one any time now; the chill had a compounded, a gathered quality, as though preparing for the dead moment before dawn.
'And she waited three months before she went back to get him,' Shreve said.
'Why did she do that?"