'Sula!' said the squire; and Sula, too, rose.
'Don’t you give up,' commanded her mother. Then she got to her feet. 'I’m going in there, too.'
Again the squire did not answer. He presented instead the effectual response of a closed and locked door.
The back office was as dark as a pocket. The squire took a match from the safe, and lit the lamp. Behind them the voices of Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill answered each other with antiphonal regularity. Adam stood by the window; Sula advanced no farther than the door. The squire spoke sharply.
'Adam!'
Adam turned from the window.
'Sula!'
Sula looked up. She had always held the squire in awe; now, without the support of her mother’s elbow and Caleb Stemmel’s eyes, she was badly frightened. Moreover, it seemed to her suddenly that the thing she had said was monstrous. The squire frightened her no further. He was now gentleness itself.
'Sula,' he said, 'you didn’t mean what you said in there, did you?'
Sula burst into tears, not of anger but of wretchedness.