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After Emily bought the arsenic, the townspeople began to fear that she would use it to kill herself, which the narrator says would have been “the best thing” under the circumstances. Her potential marriage to Homer seemed increasingly unlikely, despite their continued Sunday ritual; he himself had admitted he “was not a marrying man.” Prior to the purchase of the arsenic, some of the women of the town, outraged by the “bad example” Emily was setting for young people by continuing to associate with Homer, insisted that a Baptist minister pay her a visit. It was unclear what occurred during this interview; afterwards, the minister never spoke of what happened and swore that he’d never go back.
Following yet another Sunday in which Emily and Homer were seen together, the minister’s wife wrote to Emily’s two female cousins in Alabama. The cousins arrived for an extended stay. Emily ordered a silver toilet set monogrammed with Homer’s initials, and talk of the couple’s potential marriage resumed; surely the purchase of these items meant that Emily and Homer were engaged. As soon as it became known that Emily had also purchased a men’s outfit, including a nightshirt, the town assumed the two had married quietly. Homer, absent from town, was believed to be preparing for Emily’s move to the North or avoiding Emily’s intrusive relatives, who were, the narrator remarks, “even more Grierson than Emily had ever been,” meaning proud.
After the cousins’ departure, Homer returned to town and was seen entering the Grierson home one evening by a neighbor. This was the last anyone ever saw of Homer. It was the last they saw of Emily too, for a while. Tobe would enter and leave the house with a market basket, but Emily remained inside and was sometimes seen at the window. Holed up in the house, Emily grew plump and gray. For a period of six or seven years, Emily taught china-painting in one of the downstairs rooms to young women, “daughters and grand-daughters of Colonel Sartoris’ contemporaries” who considered these lessons to be on par with going to church. Eventually, these lessons were discontinued, and Emily closed her door to everyone but Tobe. When the town got free postal delivery, Emily was the only one who refused to attach the metal numbers and mailbox.
In what became an annual ritual, Emily refused to acknowledge the tax bill. She eventually closed up the top floor of the house. Except for the occasional glimpse of her in the window, nothing was heard from her until her death at age seventy-four. The town had not even known she had fallen ill; the only person who ever saw her was Tobe, who never speak to the townspeople about Emily’s condition and possibly did not speak even to Emily. It was revealed she died in one of the downstairs rooms.
