“He is there:  it is the ‘Annette’ that comes.  I have seen him!” she cried.

Her father drew back almost in alarm.  “What!  Thy tongue is loosened, my child?”

She drew down his head, and whispered eagerly in his ear.  “The blessed St. Yvon made me speak.  I will tell you afterwards:  it was to save Paul.  Is it not true now that he is mine?”

At that moment a clamour of welcome ran along the quay-side, as the boat glided silently through the harbour mouth, and into the light of the torches that flashed from the quay.

Women’s voices called upon Paul and his mate Jean, and the name of the ‘Annette’ (the vessel that had been christened after his foster-father’s dumb child) was passed from mouth to mouth, while the fishermen silently got out the boat that was to carry the mooring cable to the shore.

Annette clung convulsively to her father during the few minutes’ delay, and once, as he saw the light flash on her face, he suddenly remembered something Victorine had said about the doctor.  He watched her with a pang of alarm, and at the same time felt that she was stringing herself up for some effort.  Everyone was greeting Jean, the first of the boat’s crew that appeared, as he clambered up the quay-side, but Annette did not stir; then the second dark, sea-beaten figure emerged from below, and Annette darted forward.  She clasped both Paul’s hands and gazed into his face, while she seemed to be struggling with herself for something a spasm passed over her face, which was as white as her coiffe:  her father and the others gathered round, but some instinct bade them be silent.  Annette’s lips opened more than once as if she were about to speak, but no sound came forth:  then she turned to her father with a look of despairing entreaty, and at the same moment tottered and would have fallen, had he not darted forward and caught her in his arms.

“She is dead!  God help me,” he cried.

“Chut!  Chut!” said the voice of Victorine in the crowd.  “It is but the nerves.  Did not you see she was striving to say the word of greeting, and it was a cruel blow to find her speech had gone from her again.  Surely it is but a crisis of the nerves.”

But Jules, bending his tangled beard over her, groaned “The hand of God is heavy on me.”

He and Paul raised her between them, and carried her to the doctor’s, stepping softly for fear of doing her a mischief:  while the story of her recovered speech, and the danger which had threatened the fleet, was told to the returned fisherman in breathless, awe-struck accents.  He listened, full of wonder, and as he saw her safely tucked into her box-bed in the doctor’s kitchen, said in his light-hearted Celtic way, that it was not for nothing she had got her voice back, and no fear but she would soon be well, and would speak to him in the morning.

But her father, who sat watching her unconscious face, and holding her hand in both his, as though he feared she would slip away from him, shook his head and said, “She will not see another dawn.”