"If the tale I have heard, or rather have pieced out from vague bits and suggestions, and the similarity of name be true, I think I have a right to claim this girl as my daughter, supposed dead for years. There were some trinkets found on her, and there were two initials wrought in her fair baby limb by my hand. Can I see these articles?"
Then he crossed to the girl and studied her from head to foot, smiled with a little triumph, and faced the astonished group.
"I have marked her with my eyes as well," he said with a smile. "Jeanne, do you not feel that the same blood flows through our veins? Does not some mysterious voice of nature assure you that I am your father, even before the proofs are brought to light? You must know—"
Ah, did she not know! The voice spoke with no uncertain sound. Jeanne Angelot went to her father's arms.
The little group were so astounded that no one spoke. The woman still knelt, nay, shriveled in a little heap.
"She has fainted," and one of the sisters went to her, "Help, let us carry her into the next room."
They bore her away. Father Gilbert turned fiercely to the Sieur Angelot.
"There might be some question as to rights in the child," he said, in a clear, cold tone. "When did the Sieur repudiate his early marriage? He has on his island home a new wife and children."
"Death ends the most sacred of all ties for this world. Coming to meet me the party were captured by a band of marauding Indians. Few escaped. Months afterward I had the account from one of the survivors. The child's preservation must have been a miracle. And that she has been here years—" he pressed her closer to his heart.
"Monsieur Angelot, I think you will not need us in the untangling of this strange incident, but we shall be glad to hear its ending. I shall expect you to dine with me as by previous arrangement. I wish you might bring your pretty daughter."