"I have the other young woman's promise that she will tell her story to n.o.body else--n.o.body at all--until I can hear from those whom she says are her employers. But with the understanding that you will do your part."

"What's that?" asked Cap'n Ira quickly.

"She wants to come up here and stay with you. She says she is sure you are her relatives. She says if you will let her come, she will be able to prove to you that she is the real niece you expected--whom you sent for last summer."

"Why, she's crazy!" again cried Cap'n Ira.

"I--I am almost afraid of her," murmured Prudence, looking from Sheila to her husband.

"I a.s.sure you, Sister Ball, she is not insane. She is harmless."

"She didn't talk as though she was when she was here--not by a jugful," declared Cap'n Ira bitterly.

"That was because she was angry," explained Elder Minnett patiently. "You must not judge her by her appearance when she came here the other day and found--as she declares--another girl in her rightful place."

"I swan!" exclaimed the old shipmaster, bursting out again. "I won't stand for that. Her rightful place, indeed! Why, if she was forty times Prudence's niece and we didn't want her here, what's to make us take her, I want to know?"

"Do you think we ought to, Elder?" questioned Prudence faintly.

"I think, under all the circ.u.mstances, that it is your Christian duty. Know the girl better. See if there is not something in her that reminds you--"

"Avast there!" shouted Cap'n Ira, pounding with his cane on the floor. "That's going a deal too far. 'Christian duty,' indeed! How about our duty to Ida May setting there, and to ourselves? Prudence is afraid of that crazy gal in the first place."

"I give you my word she is not insane."

"That's your opinion," said the captain grimly. "I wouldn't back it with my word, Elder, unless I was prepared to go the whole v'y'ge.

Do you mean to say that you accept that gal's story as true--in all partic'lars?"

"I don't say that."

"Then I shall stick to my opinion. She's as loony as she can be. And I am plumb against insulting our Ida May by letting the girl come up here. What do you say, Prudence?"

The old woman was much perturbed. Elder Minnett was a minister of the gospel. To be told by him that it was her Christian duty to take a certain course bore much weight with Prudence Ball.

But when she looked at Sheila, sitting there so pale and silent, and realized that on her head all this was falling, the old woman rose up, burst into tears, and threw herself into the girl's arms.

"No, no!" she sobbed. "Don't let her come here, Ira. We don't want her. We don't want anybody but Ida May whom we love so dear, and who we know loves us. We can't do it, Elder Minnett! Why, if they should come and tell me--and prove it--that Ida May wasn't our niece and that other girl was, I couldn't bear the creature 'round. No, I couldn't. I couldn't forgive anybody that would separate us from this dear, dear girl!"

Cap'n Ira had got upon his feet and was leaning forward on his cane.

With a shaking finger he drew the elder's attention to the two women, rocking in each other's arms.

"You hear that? You see that?" demanded the captain brokenly, the tears starting from his own eyes and finding gutters down his cleanly shaved cheeks. "That's your answer, Elder! You have some idea how Prudence and I longed for young company in this house, and somebody to help and comfort us. _And we got her._

"Ida May come to us like the falling of manna in the wilderness for them spent and wandering Israelites. She has been to us more than ever we dared hope for. If she was our own child and had growed up here on Wreckers' Head our own born daughter, I couldn't think no more of her.

"And you come here and ask us to give countenance for a moment to a half-witted girl that says she belongs here in Ida May's place, and claiming Ida May's name. More than that, she saying that our own girl that we love so is a liar and an impostor and altogether bad--such as she must be if she had fooled us so. I swan! Elder, I should think you'd have more sense." And Cap'n Ira concluded abruptly and with a return to his usual self-control.

The silence which ensued was only broken by the old woman's sobs.

Cap'n Ira, frankly wiping his own eyes with the great silk handkerchief which he usually flourished when he took snuff, strode across the room and patted Prudence's withered shoulder. He said nothing, nor did the elder. It was Sheila who broke the silence at last.

She had stood up. Now she put Prudence tenderly into Cap'n Ira's arms. She gave him, too, such a thankful, beaming glance that the old man was almost staggered. For he had not seen one of those smiles for more than two days.

"Elder Minnett," Sheila said, and her voice was quite steady, "I think it is my place to speak."

"Yes?" was the noncommittal response of the grim old minister.

"I should not think for a moment of doubting your judgment in such a matter. If you say Cap'n Ira and Mrs. Ball should receive this--this girl here while the matter is being examined, I hope they will agree with you and allow her to come."

"Why, Ida May!" gasped Prudence.

"That gal's an angel! She ain't nothing but an angel!" marveled Cap'n Ira.

"But I think," said Sheila, "that the girl should be made to promise that while she is here, and if she comes here, that she will not speak to anybody outside this room at the present time of the claim she makes--especially as it seems to affect Captain Latham."

"I swan! That's so! He's got a wage and share in this thing, ain't he? And he ain't here to defend himself, if we be."

The elder nodded slowly. His gaze did not leave Sheila's face.

"I think I can promise that in her name. Indeed, I had already extracted such a promise before I would undertake to come up here. I have warned Mrs. Pauling not to repeat a word the girl said to her.

And Zebedee is a prudent young man."

"I told Zeb myself to keep his hatch battened," growled Cap'n Ira.

"But, I swan, Ida May! I don't see how you can bear to have the crazy critter here. And Prudence--"

"If Ida May says she is willing," sighed the old woman, glad to be able to set a course not opposed to her minister's advice.

"Thank you, young woman," Elder Minnett said, speaking grimly enough to Sheila. "Those who have nothing to fear can afford to be generous. You have done right."

The subject was dropped--to the relief of all of them. Tea was poured from the marble-topped, black-walnut table, and Sheila pa.s.sed biscuit, jam, cakes, and other delicacies. She performed her part of the ceremony with apparent calm. She did not speak to the elder again, nor he to her, save when she ran out to carry forgotten gloves to him when he had climbed into the automobile.

The grim old man shot her through with the keenest of keen glances as he accepted the gloves.

"I don't think, young woman," he said softly, "that you are likely to put poison in that other girl's tea--as she says she's afraid you will."

Then he drove away.

CHAPTER XXVII

CAP'N IRA SPEAKS OUT

Wrung as Sheila's heart had been by the expression of the old woman's utter confidence in her and by Cap'n Ira's warm words of approbation spoken before the elder, it was nevertheless for Tunis Latham's sake that she had abetted the minister's desire and had agreed that the real Ida May Bostwick should come to the Ball house on Wreckers' Head.

By extracting a promise from Ida May that she would talk to n.o.body for the present--especially about the connection of the captain of the _Seamew_ with Ida May's affairs--Sheila believed she had entered a wedge which might open the way for the young man to escape from a situation which threatened both his reputation and his peace of mind.