She was very quiet at supper. The meal was a hurried one, for Sue and Coats were going to the village, and no one noticed Ann's white face. She was going to meet Garvin that night. She went as soon as it was dark, and waited for him, sitting tensely upright under the willows; usually it was Garvin who waited. She sat so still that a rabbit came in under the willows, almost to her feet, before it leaped and fled.
Garvin came presently, well hidden by the dense growth of elderberry bushes that, matted by foxgrape vines, extended to the creek. He had chosen this spot because he could come all the way from the woods under cover. "Ann!" he said. "You here first!" On the instant his arms were about her.
Ann did not hold him off as usual. She sat quite still and let him kiss her. It was a few moments before he noticed how passive she was. "What is it? What has happened?" he asked.
"Just that I have made up my mind."
"To what?" he asked, not knowing what to expect, for he was accustomed to reluctance and withdrawal.
"That I'll go with you, Garvin—as soon as you can take me away. Then I'll marry you. I'm a Penniman, but I'm fully as good as your sister—or any Westmore lady ever was. I'm not afraid to marry you."
The blood flared in Garvin's face, but he thanked her as tenderly as any Westmore ever uttered the words. "My darling!... You do love me, then! You do love me! Thank you, dear."
Ann's hand drew his face to hers. "You're all I have," she said.
Garvin held her closely while he drew off his seal ring, engraved with the Westmore crest, and put it on her finger. "You can't wear it openly, dear; but every time you look at it it will remind you that you are promised to me."
He kissed her hands and her lips, while he gave her every assurance desire for possession ever invented. And Ann, borne into more perfect trust, gave her future more fully into his keeping.