Her heart went out to him in a wave of tenderness. She dropped on her knees by his side and put her arms round his neck.
"Dad dear," she murmured, "don't dwell on our troubles tonight, great as they are. Let us rather be thankful that we were able to render some service to our fellow creatures, and that our own lives were preserved in a time of real danger. God works in His own wonderful way, doesn't He, Dear? It was His will that we should have gone to Le Pouldu today. It was surely by providential contriving that we should happen to be near the reef when the Stella struck. Something more than idle chance brought us there."
"Yes," he said, gazing into her eyes with the sorrow-laden expression of a man who sees naught but misery before him, "it was not chance, Yvonne, but the operation of a law as certain as death. The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. I had almost forgotten that your mother lived. After eighteen years she was dead to me. So far as you are concerned she might as well have died in giving you birth. Then her memory would have been a blessing rather than a curse."
"Hush, Dear! She may be dying even now. No, no, Darling, you shall not say it!" and her soft lips stifled the terrible wish that his anguish might have voiced.
For a little while neither could speak. Yvonne's head bent over her father's knees, and he knew that she was crying. With a supreme effort he strove to lessen the tension.
"Come, come, Sweetheart!" he said, stroking the mass of brown hair beneath the lace coif. "You and I must face this difficulty together, or goodness only knows what may be the outcome! Tell me now, if you are able, how you learned that Mrs. Carmac was your mother."
"Oh, Dad, she recognized me at once!" sobbed the girl. "Poor thing, the warmth of the blankets and a teaspoonful of brandy I forced between her lips brought her round slowly."
"When?"
"After we crossed the bar."
"I feared as much," groaned Ingersoll.