Barney, who was scooping fish into a basket, grabbed the handle and strode away as fast as his long legs would carry him. Old Captain shouted: "Barney!" but the younger man did not pause.
"Jeannie girl," said Old Captain, as they followed Barney down the wharf, "Barney's ashamed to meet you; but he ain't got no call to be. What happened weren't his fault. But he thinks you'll hate him like p'isen when you know."
"What happened?" pleaded Jeanne, pale with dread.
"It was like this. The squall came up sudden, an' the boat went over. A tug picked Barney up—he was hangin' on to the bottom of the boat."
"And—and daddy?"
"There was nobody there when the tug come but Barney."
"Was my father—you said daddy and Michael—they did go out that day? They surely did go in the boat?"
"Yes," returned Old Captain, sorrowfully. "They went and they didn't come back. That's all."
"They went and they didn't come back—they went and they didn't come back"—Jeanne's feet kept time to the words as the pair walked up the dock. "They went and they didn't come back."
Jeanne couldn't believe it. Yet, somehow, she had known it. All that summer, in spite of her brave assurances to herself, she had felt—fatherless. The fatherless feeling had been justified. Yet she couldn't believe it. Her precious father—and poor little Michael!