"Prudence, the merest sort of commonsense, warns me that we ought to get away from Pont Aven by the first possible train."
"Father dear, what did Peridot say to you before he brought the Hirondelle round into the wind off Les Verrés? I couldn't hear, of course. But do you think I could not read your face? Had you not to decide whether or not you would risk my life as well as your own? You were sure of Lorry—who wouldn't be? But it came hard to sacrifice me as well. Did you obey commonsense then? Did you even hesitate?"
Ingersoll threw up a hand in a gesture of sheer hopelessness, and pretended to search for a box of matches on the mantelpiece. "So be it!" he said wearily. "Don't think I am afraid of any rival in your affection, Yvonne. Perhaps your woman's heart is wiser than my gray head. But, mark you, I make two stipulations! No matter what transpires, you must come home before eleven o'clock; and it is impossible, absolutely impossible, that your mother and I should ever meet!"
He was choosing his words carelessly that night. How "impossible" it would have seemed that morning had some wizard foretold the events of the succeeding hours! But Yvonne also was deaf to all but his yielding. She ran to him, and drew his face close to hers.
"Dad," she said, kissing him, "you are the best and dearest man in the world. How could your wife ever have left you? If I live a hundred years, I shall never understand that."
She was going; but he stayed her.
"Yvonne, be governed by one vital consideration. Those two men in the cabin must have caught some glimmer of the truth from your mother's ravings. But they are strangers, and their own troubles may have preoccupied their minds to the exclusion of the affairs of others. The only person in Pont Aven who knows something of my sad history is Madame Pitou. She has been aware all these years that my wife was alive, or at any rate that she was living after I came here. She is certainly to be trusted. Take care that none other learns your mother's identity. I ask this for her own sake."
The girl smiled wistfully. "Yet you would have me believe you an ogre!" she said.
A few minutes later Tollemache arrived. He found his friend sitting by the fire, with a pipe that had gone out between his lips.