In the course of the morning, Plutina took advantage of an opportunity, whilst her sister was busy in the garden, and went to her grandfather, who was taking his ease on the porch. She was encouraged by the mild and benignant expression on the old man's face, which had been more often fierce, as she remembered it through the years. She seated herself quietly, and then proceeded immediately to confession. There was no attempt at palliation of her offense, if offense it were. She gave the narrative of events starkly, from the moment when she had first seen Hodges descending Luffman's Branch to the time of her separation from him at the clearing, on the yesterday.

Throughout the account, the listener sat sprawled in the big willow rocker, his slippered feet resting on the porch rail. The huge body was crumpled into an awkward posture, which was never changed, once the history was begun. The curved wooden pipe hung from his lips, black against the iron gray cascade of beard, but he did not draw at it again, after the opening-sentences from his granddaughter's lips. Plutina, looking down, perceived that the folded hands, lying in his lap, were clenched so strongly that the knuckles showed bloodless. Yet, he made no movement, nor offered any word of comment or of question. When the girl had made an end, and sat waiting distressedly for his verdict, he still rested mute, until the silence became more than she could endure, and she cried out in pleading: "Kain't ye fergive me, Gran'pap?"