Plutina had no sleep the night following her encounter with Dan Hodges. Throughout the dragging hours, she was tortured by sinister imaginings. She exhausted her brain in futile strivings for some means of escape from the mesh of circumstance. It was not until the gray twilight of dawn shone through the curtains that a possibility of relief stirred in her mind. It was out of desperation that the idea sprang. She felt herself so utterly forlorn and helpless in her loneliness that the despair was overpowering. It was then, at last, that the inspiration came to her: She would confess everything to her grandfather!
Though she quailed before the prospect, she rejoiced as well. The old man was strong and resourceful. He would know how to meet and overcome the outlaw's villainy. Moreover, now that her decision had been made, Plutina was surprised to find her alarm over such confession greatly lessened from what she had supposed possible. She began to realize that some intangible change in her grandfather himself was responsible for this. She became convinced that the new gentleness had had its origin in the unselfish abandonment of his marital hopes. It was as if that renunciation had vitally softened him. Perhaps, in this strange mood, he would be less intolerant of her fault in turning informer. His prejudice could find no excuse for her treachery, she knew, yet the peril in which she had involved herself, and him, might arouse his pity. Assuredly, he would be moved to instant action for both their sakes. For that reason alone, if for no other, she must tell him her story without a moment of unnecessary delay.
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?"