Ann stood on the path and watched them, Sue's arms about Coats' neck, his arms holding her—and then her grandfather's welcome. The two men clasped hands, the three stood, held together in their joy, then went on slowly, her father helping her grandfather up the stairs.
Ann slipped in between the grapevines, skirted the barn enclosure, then ran like a hunted thing for the shelter of the woods; not to the hollow through which the road came, but up higher, to the group of pines that edged the woods. There was neither road nor path there; the pines were clothed and would hide her.
She stumbled as she ran, for she could not see; her sobs were blinding and strangling her. She crept beneath the sheltering branches and clung to the earth, the only mother she had ever known, beat upon the breast to which she clung, and clung the tighter.
In that hour of anguish, Ann parted with her childhood, the blessed capacity to weep one moment and laugh the next with sorrow and pain forgotten. The collie had lost his playmate, the birds a fellow-songster. Ann had not lost spirit, nor the power to endure which is a woman's heritage; but a hurt to a child is a scar carried through life, and Ann had been ineradicably branded.
XIV
THE MISFITS
The sun, well on its way to the west, reddened the bald peak above Crest Cave and shot its rays through the screen of pines on the ledge below, mottling the bed of pine-needles at the mouth of the cave. The midday sun had warmed them; they were still warm and resinous, a comfortable resting place.
Garvin Westmore lay full length on the sweet-scented bed, motionless, except when he lifted to his elbow to look out at the country below. His, or some other hand, had cut away the branches that hid the view; one could sit at the mouth of the cave and see, as through a tunnel, the slope of grain-land, the winding creek, the pastures and the Back Road; and, beyond the semicircle of woods, the roof of the Penniman house, and beyond that, open country stretching into blue distance.
Garvin was keeping watch. He quickly singled out Ann's brown cape from the browns and duns of the woods. He sat up and watched each step of her approach. He had not been at all certain that she would come; she was a resolute little thing to brave discovery in this fashion—and both ignorant and innocent ... and vastly trustful. Nevertheless, it was the eternal attraction that was bringing her—and leading him into deep waters as well. There would be all hell to pay—if he were not careful.