“Dame!  I will not go,” said her sister.  “Can you not see that Annette is bewitched?  If she must go, she must.  I will have nought to do with it.”

Victorine, however, scouted her younger sister’s reasoning, and hurried out across the small court-yard, through the gate and on to the road.

The whole village seemed gathered at the harbour-side; children and old men, lads and women, eager, yet with the patient quietness that is the way with the Breton folk.  Here a demure group of white-coiffed girls stood waiting with scarce a word passing among them, waiting at the quay-side for the fathers, brothers, or sweethearts, that for months had been facing the perils of the northern seas.  There a dark-eyed, loose-limbed Breton peasant, the wildness of whose look bewrayed the gentleness of his nature, was arguing with a white-haired patriarch about the probable value of this year’s haul:  while quaint-looking children in little tight-fitting bonnets and clattering sabots clung patiently to their mother’s skirts, their mothers, who could remember many a home-coming of the boats, and knew that it would be well if to some of those now waiting at the harbour, grief were not brought instead of joy.

The vanguard of the fleet had been sighted some half-hour ago, and the two or three boats whose lights could now be seen approaching, one of which was recognized as Paul Gignol’s “Annette,” would, if all was well, anchor in the harbour that night:  for the tide was high, so that the harbour basin was full; and the light of the torches and lanterns that were carried to and fro among the crowd, was reflected from its surface in distorted and broken flashes; while the regular plashing of the water against the quay-side accompanied the low murmur of the crowd.

Victorine sought in vain for Annette in the darkness, dressed, as she was, like all the other peasant girls; but her eye lighted on the tall, powerful figure of Jules Leroux, Annette’s father, standing at the door of the bureau du port, where he and some others were discussing the signals.

Victorine approached the group, and announced in her emphatic way that Annette was ill, very ill, and had gone out alone into the crowd, when the doctor had bidden her not leave her bed.  Jules, who had been down at the harbour since midday, and had heard nothing of Annette’s recovered voice, or of her riding to the village, started off without waiting for more, along the quay and on to the very end of the mole, where the light guarded the entrance to the harbour, saying to himself, “It is there she will be—­if she have feet to carry her—­it is there she will be—­when the boat comes in.”

Victorine looked after him, murmuring, “Surely the child Annette is the apple of her father’s eye.”

The outline of the foremost fishing-smack was growing more and more distinct on the water, as he reached the end of the quay.  Moving figures on board flashed into uncertain light for a moment, then disappeared into darkness again.  A girl darted out from the crowd as he approached, and clung to his arm.  “Annette, my little one,” said Jules, “never fear.  The Saints will bring him safe home.”