“So they sat on their horses and waited for him.  I suppose they knew that he would have to come out sometime: I suppose they sat there and thought about those two pistols.  Because there was still no warrant for him, you see: it was just public opinion in an acute state of indigestion; and now other horsemen rode into the square and became aware of the situation, so that there was quite a posse waiting when he walked out onto the gallery.  He wore a new hat now, and a new broadcloth coat, so they knew what the portmanteau had contained.  They even knew now what the basket had contained because he did not have that with him now either, though doubtless at the time it merely puzzled them more than ever.  Because, you see, they had been too busy speculating on just how he was planning to use Mr Coldfield and, since his return, too completely outraged by the belief that they now saw the results even if the means were still an enigma, to remember about Miss Ellen at all.

            “So he stopped again doubtless and looked from face to face again, doubtless memorizing the new faces, without any haste, with still the beard to hide whatever his mouth might have shown.  But he seems to have said nothing at all this time.  He just descended the steps and walked on across the square, the committee (your grandfather said it had grown to almost fifty by now) moving too, following him across the square.  They say he did not even look back.  He just walked on, erect, with the new hat cocked and carrying in his hand now that which must have seemed to them the final gratuitous bafflement and even insult, with the committee riding along in the street beside him and not quite parallel, and others who did not happen to have horses at the moment joining in and following the committee in the road, and ladies and children and women and slaves coming to the doors and windows of the homes as they passed to watch as they went on in grim tableau, and Sutpen, still without once looking back, entered Mr. Coldfield’s gate and strode on up the brick walk to the door, carrying his newspaper cornucopia of flowers.

            “They waited for him again.  The crowd was growing fast now—other men and a few boys and even some negroes from the adjacent houses, clotting behind the eight original members of the committee who sat watching Mr Coldfield’s door until he emerged.  It was a good while and he no longer carried the flowers, and when he returned to the gate, he was engaged to be married.  But they did not know this, because as soon as he reached the gate, they arrested him” (35-36).

Faulkner, William.  Absalom, Absalom! Vinatge International Edition. New York:

Random House, 1990.