"Mom and I would be glad to know what you know about her," said Zebedee. "She--she 'pears to have a--a great imagination."

"I shouldn't wonder," Cap'n Ira snorted.

"She don't act crazy, but she certainly talks crazy," the visitor went on emphatically. "Why, she says the most ridiculous things about--about Miss Bostwick!" He bowed and blushed as he spoke the name and looked penitently toward Sheila. "Why, she declares _her_ name is Bostwick!"

"That's what she done up here," said Cap'n Ira grimly. "I cal'late she means to kick up a fuss. Is she still stopping with your mother, Zeb?"

"Yes. She paid a week's board money down. I expect mom wouldn't have taken her, or it, if Tunis hadn't brought her."

"That wasn't Tunis' fault," snapped the old man. "He had to get shet of her somehow. We expect she'll try to make trouble."

"Oh, as for that," said Zeb, with some relief, "I don't see, even if she is your niece, why she should expect you to take her in if you don't want to!"

"She ain't," said Cap'n Ira flatly. "You can take that from me, Zeb."

"Not any relation at all?"

"None at all, as far as we know," declared the captain.

"Then what does she want to talk the way she does, for?" cried the young man. "I told mom she was crazy, and now I know she is."

"I guess likely," agreed the old man, taking upon himself the burden of the explanation. "None of us up here ever saw the gal before.

Neither Prudence nor me nor Ida May. She's loony!"

"I told mom so," reiterated Zeb, with a great sigh of relief. "I know what she said must be a pack of foolishness. But you know how mom is. I--"

"She's soft. I know," returned Cap'n Ira.

"She's so tender-hearted," explained Zeb. "The girl talks so. She's talked mom not into believing in her, but into kind of listening and sympathizing with her. And now, to-night, she's took her to see Elder Minnett."

"What? I swan! To see the elder!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cap'n Ira. "What she needs is a doctor, not a minister. What do you think of that, Prudence?"

"I hope Elder Minnett will be able to put her in better mind,"

sighed his wife. "That girl must have a very wicked heart, indeed, if she isn't really crazy."

CHAPTER XXVI

ELDER MINNETT HAS HIS SAY

Another night counted among the interminable nights which have dragged their slow length across the couch of sleeplessness. To Sheila, lying in the four-poster--a downy couch, indeed, for a quiet conscience--the s.p.a.ce of time after she blew out her lamp and until the dawn pa.s.sed like the sluggish coils of some Midgard serpent. An eternity in itself.

She came down to her daily tasks again with no change in her looks, although her voice had the same placid, kindly tone which had cheered the old people for these many weeks. But they both were worried about her.

"Maybe she's been working too hard, Prudence," ventured the old man.

"Can it be so, d'ye think?"

"She says she likes to work. She's a marvel of a housekeeper, Ira. I don't mean to put too much on her, but I can't do much myself, spry as I do feel this fall. And she won't let me, anyway."

"I know, I know," muttered Cap'n Ira. "She's with you like she is with me. Always running to help me, or to pick up something I let fall, or to fetch and carry. A kinder girl never breathed. I swan!

What should we do without her, Prue? That Tunis--"

"Sh!" Prudence begged him. "Don't chaff no more about that, Ira."

"Why not?" he asked. "Though I don't feel much like chaffing when I think of them getting married. 'Tis a pretty serious business for us, Prudence."

"I had a chance to hint about it last night when you went outside with Zebedee," whispered his wife, "I spoke about Tunis. She--she says she'll never leave us to marry Tunis or any other man."

"What's that?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cap'n Ira. "He wouldn't agree to come and live here, I reckon. What would become of his Aunt 'Cretia? I don't guess there's any fear of her getting married, is there?"

"No, no! Don't be funnin'! But Ida May said just that--in so many words."

"She's mad with him, do you cal'late? They had a tiff!" cried her husband. "And they were like two turtledoves the night that other gal come here. It don't seem possible. I swan! _That's_ why she's so on her beam ends, I bet a cake!"

"It may be. She wouldn't say much. I didn't understand, though, that they had quarreled. Only that she'd made up her mind that she wouldn't marry."

"Oh, she'll change her mind!" said Cap'n Ira, wagging his head.

"Do you think so? Not so easy. You'd ought to know by this time how firm Ida May can be."

"The Lord help Tunis then," said Cap'n Ira emphatically. "But his loss is our gain. Ain't no two ways about that."

Sheila's secret thoughts were not calculated to calm her soul. Her determination braced her body as well as her mind to go about her daily tasks with her usual thoroughness, but she could not confront the old people with even a ghost of her usual smile. So she kept out of their way as much as possible and communed alone with her bitter thoughts.

The uncertainty of what Ida May was doing and saying down there in Big Wreck Cove was not all that agitated Sheila. Her conscience, so long lulled by her peaceful existence here with the two old people, was now continually censuring her.

Sin brings its own secret punishment, though the sinner may hide the effects of the punishment for a long time. But Sheila could not now conceal the effect of the mental pain and the remorse she suffered.

Of one thing she might be sure. The neighbors had not as yet heard about the real Ida May or heard her story. Otherwise some of the women living on the Head would have been in to hear the particulars from Prudence.

But that afternoon the throaty chug of Elder Minnett's little car--it had created almost a scandal in Big Wreck Cove when he bought it--was heard mounting the road to the Head.

"I swan!" commented Cap'n Ira, who sat at the sunny sitting-room window, for it was a cold day. "Here comes that tin wagon of the elder's. But he's alone. Get on your best bib and tucker, Prudence, for there ain't any doubt but what he's headin' in this way."

"Oh, dear me!" fluttered his wife. "I wonder what he's going to say.

Make the tea strong, Ida May. The elder likes it so it'll about bear up an egg. And open a jar of that quince jam. I wish we had fresh biscuits, although them you made for dinner were light as feathers."

"I'll make some now. There's a hot oven," replied the girl.

"No, no," interposed Cap'n Ira firmly. "I want you should sit in here with us and hear all the elder's got to say."

"Perhaps, Uncle Ira, he will want to talk to you and Aunt Prue privately."

"There won't be no private talk about you, Ida May," snorted the captain, his keen eyes sparkling. "Not much! If he's got anything to say to your aunt and me, he's got to say it in your hearing."