Poor Constance turned in a frozen way to follow Rose and her stepmother to the other side of the ship.
Her father—her dear, dear, longed-for father—was come back. He might be bringing them news of a favoured site where they would go to begin their new home.
At last they were to step upon land again, to live in some degree the life they knew of household task and tilling, walking the woods, drawing water, building fires—the life so long postponed, for which they all thirsted.
But if she and Giles were to meet their father accused of theft! If they should see in those grave, kind, wise eyes a shadow of a doubt of his eldest children! Constance felt that she dared not see him come if such a thing were so much as possible.
But when the shallop was made fast beside the Mayflower and Constance saw her father boarding the ship among the others of the returning expedition, and she met the glad light in his eyes resting upon her, all fear was swallowed up in immense relief and joy.
With a low cry she sprang to meet him and fell sobbing on his shoulder, forgetful of the stern on-lookers who would condemn such display of feeling.
"Oh, father, father, if you had never come back!" she murmured.
"But I have come, daughter!" Stephen Hopkins reminded her. "Surely you are not weeping that I have come! We have great things to tell you, attacks by savages, some hardships, but we have brought grain which we found hidden by the Indians, and we have found the right place to establish our dwelling."
Constance raised her head and dried her eyes, still shaken by sobs. Her father looked keenly at the pale, drawn face, and knew that something more than ordinary lay behind the overwhelming emotion with which she had received him.
"Poor child, poor motherless child!" he thought, and the pity of that moment went far in influencing his subsequent treatment of Constance when he learned what had ailed her on his arrival.