Section XV-XVII:

Alek Williams returns home and talks to his wife about how Henry behaved during the day. He remarks that Henry is awful quiet only to discover that Henry has escaped. 

Henry has crashed the Page party. A little girl has seen him through the window and has been rendered incoherent.  A boy at the party lies about what he saw, claiming to have seen a great crouched figure that emitted “a hollow laugh.” 

Henry proceeds to the Farragut house where upon his appearance, Sim “simply fell over it to the ground. He made no sound, his eyes stuck out, his nerveless hands tried to grapple the rail to prevent a tumble, and then he vanished. Bella, blubbering, and with her hair suddenly and mysteriously dishevelled, was crawling on her hands and knees fearsomely up the steps.”

These sections destroy hope for Henry to ever be assimilated into Whilomville again. His appearance has terrified a little girl beyond recovery.  The girl that once wished to be married to Henry crawled away from him. Crane makes people to extraordinary things in Henry’s presence to stress how terrible Henry is: “Mrs. Farragut, who was of enormous weight, and who for eight years had done little more than sit in an arm-chair and describe her various ailments, had with speed and agility scaled a high board fence.”

Link to text:

Section XV:

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=CraMons.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=15&division=div2

Section XVI:

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=CraMons.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=16&division=div2

Section XVII:

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=CraMons.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=17&division=div2