- Vernon and Cora see Peabody’s team of horses run past their house. Cora understands right away (that Addie has died), but Vernon is either slow to catch on or lazy and in denial.
- Vardaman comes around at midnight and knocks on their door. He is dripping wet from the four mile walk to the Tulls’.
- He tells Vernon that he was there earlier in the day and that he knows there was a fish. Cora says that Vardaman has gone mad and that Addie must have passed away.
- Tull hitches up the team of horses, and the three of them go back to the Bundrens’.
- Cash has finished the coffin, and Anse nails the coffin shut.
- The next day, Vardaman is found in the same room, having fallen asleep after drilling the coffin full of holes. Two of the holes went into the corpse’s face.
- Cora says that Anse is getting what he deserves as a sinful man. Vernon thinks that that wouldn’t be right because Anse did the best he knew to. Still, Vernon is glad that his wife is so pious, figuring it can’t hurt him in the long run.