Later, when she was able to think and plan and plot again, she would evolve some method of rescuing Tunis from the results of his own impulsiveness and her weakness in accepting his suggestion as a way out of her personal difficulties. She should have known better! She should have scouted the idea at its inception!

She saw that this position in which she was placed was far and away more serious than that she had been in when she sat with Tunis upon the Boston Common bench. She had thought at that time that it needed little more to make her condition too desperate to bear. She would now, she felt, give life itself for the privilege of being back there and able to refuse the reckless plan of escape the captain of the _Seamew_ had submitted to her.

She did not for a breath's length blame Tunis for the misfortune that had overtaken her--overtaken them both, indeed. She had accepted his plan with open eyes. In her desperation she had even foreseen the possibility of this outcome. She must blame n.o.body but herself.

But all these thoughts were futile. No use in considering for a single moment past situations and possibilities. She was confronted by a grim and adamant present! And that grim present was in the person of a girl with tear-streaked face who looked up at her, sobbing.

"You're the meanest girl I ever heard of. I'll pay you for this.

Think of the gall of you comin' here and tellin' my rich relations you was me. I never heard of such a thing! It beats the movies, and and I thought they was just lies. Gee, but you must be a regular crook! I expect the very clothes you got on my aunt bought and gave you. I'll put you where you belong!"

"And suppose I put you where you seem to belong?" interrupted the girl in possession. "There is such a place as an insane hospital in this county, I believe. I think you must have either escaped from such a place, or that you belong in one."

"Oh!" gasped the other girl, staring up at her amazedly and not a little terrified by Sheila's emphatic speech.

"If you really are some distant relative of the family," the latter continued, "Mrs. Ball may wish to see you. Come into the house and I will make you a cup of tea. You need it. And you can wait for Mrs.

Ball and the captain to return, if you like."

Ida May darted to her feet again.

"A cup of tea of _your_ making!" she cried. "You'd put poison in it!

You must be a wicked girl--anybody can see that. I wouldn't put anything bad past you. I guess them stories in the movies ain't so much lies, after all.

"I want nothing from you, whoever you are, only my name back and the chance you have grabbed off here. I'll go to the neighbors about it.

I'll tell 'em what you've done. I guess I can find somebody to believe me."

Her abrupt halt warned Sheila that there was somebody approaching.

Before she could turn to see who it was, the other girl e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:

"My goodness! What is it--a junk wagon? Look at that horse, will you! Say! who's these folks? What a pair of old dubs!"

Cap'n Ira and Prudence had returned somewhat earlier than Sheila had expected. Old Queenie came up the lane and turned in at the open gateway beyond the garden.

The new girl tugged excitedly at Sheila's arm.

"Say! Who are they?" she demanded huskily.

"This is Cap'n Ball and Mrs. Ball," was the reply, and the girl in possession hurried forward to help them out of the carriage.

"Ahoy, Ida May!" the captain hailed cheerfully. "What's the good word?"

He prepared to climb down. The girl a.s.sisted Prudence first.

"Who's that with you, Ida May?" asked the old woman. Then, with keener eyes than the captain, she observed the change in the girl's face. "What's happened? Something has gone wrong, Ida May, I know.

What is it?"

"That--that girl--"

Sheila almost choked. How could she prevaricate to the good old woman who had been so kind to her?

"Who is she, Ida May?"

"She says she is your niece," whispered the girl.

"My niece? Land's sake! I ain't got no niece but you, Ida May. Say, Ira, do you know this young woman? She ain't none o' your relations, is she?"

Cap'n Ira came to the ground finally with a thump of his cane. He straightened up and started at the new arrival.

"Red-headed, I swan!" he muttered. "Never was a Ball that I know of with that color topknot. And she looks like one o' these sandpipers ye see along sh.o.r.e. Look at that hat!"

"Ida May says she claims to be our niece," Prudence told him.

"I swan! I told you we was gettin' mighty popular."

Sheila, her limbs now trembling so that she feared she would fall, took Queenie by the head and backed the carriage around. The old mare would have to be put in her stall and the carryall run under cover. But the girl was fearful of moving out of earshot.

Cap'n Ira and Prudence approached the real Ida May. The latter had been staring at them, marveling. Unlike Sheila, almost everything that Ida May Bostwick thought was advertised upon her face.

"My goodness!" considered Ida May. "What a pair of hicks!"

"You was lookin' for somebody named Ball, I cal'late?" Cap'n Ira said within Sheila's hearing as she led the gray mare away.

She could not catch the reply. Whatever the real Ida May said, she could not stand by to deny it. Besides, the matter must rest for the present on the evidence, and she did not know yet how much proof Ida May might be able to advance to strengthen her case. If it rested upon mere a.s.sertion, then Sheila need merely deny its truth and hold her own!

And, frightened as she was, that was exactly what Sheila intended to do. For the sake of Tunis, as well as for her own salvation, she must stand up against the new girl and hold by her own first claim--that she was the girl the b.a.l.l.s had sent Tunis for.

CHAPTER XXI

AT SWORDS' POINTS

Sheila Macklin got Queenie to the stable and unharnessed her. She ran the carryall into the barn and then closed the big door for the night, although the sun was still an hour high. She stopped to fling grain to the poultry, too. These ch.o.r.es she did with the thought in her mind that she might never do them again for Cap'n Ira and Prudence.

If that girl could prove her claim, if she could satisfy the old people that they had been cheated by Sheila and Tunis Latham, they might be indignant enough to put her right out--to-night!

The trio had disappeared into the house. She heard voices from the sitting room. But she wanted to return the furniture to the front room and finish the task which the real Ida May's coming had interrupted.

She had been strong enough when she carried the chairs and the settee into the yard, but she could scarcely get them back again.

The strength seemed to have deserted her arms. She staggered in with the last article of furniture and set it in place.

The murmur of voices from the room across the hall was steady. What were they saying? What had Ida May told them? How were the b.a.l.l.s taking it? Could that cheap, little thing convince the old people that she was their niece and that the girl they had come to love and trust was an impostor? Sheila Macklin's heart bled for Cap'n Ira and Prudence!

If she must go and they took this other girl in her place, would they be happy? And they had been happy during these last months!

Would they not miss her if she left them to the mercy of this new claimant?

Yes, Sheila loved Cap'n Ira and Prudence. She loved them as though they were her very own! Not since her father had died had the girl been so fond of anybody--except Tunis, of course. And what would Tunis say when he came?