“I swan!  You be a likely gal, Ida May,” said the old man, both reflectively and gratefully.  “What would Prue and me do without you?  And no other girl but just you would have begun to fill the bill o’ lading.  That’s as sure as sure!  See now,” he went on, with emphasis, “suppose you’d been such a one as that half-crazy critter that come here yesterday!  Where’d Prudence and me been with her in the house?  Well!”

“She—­she may not be as bad as she seemed under those particular circumstances,” Sheila said hesitatingly.  “If she had come here—­had come here first and you and Aunt Prue had not known me at all—­”

“I swan!  Don’t say no more!  Don’t say no more, I tell ye!” gasped Cap’n Ira.  “It’s bad luck to talk such a way; I do believe it is.  Come on, Ida May.  You tackle my hair and let’s see what you can do with it.  I know right well you’ll make it look better than Prudence used to do.”

Cap’n Ira was talking for effect, and the result he wished to achieve was bringing a smile to Sheila’s face and a brighter light into her eyes, the violet hues of which were far more subdued than he desired.  His success was not marked, but he changed to some degree the forlorn expression of the girl’s countenance, so that when Prudence appeared in the midst of the operation of shaving, Sheila could greet the old woman with a tremulous smile.

“You deary-dear!” crooned Prudence, with her withered arms about the strong, young frame of the girl, drawing her close.  “I know you’ve suffered this night.  That mad girl was enough to put us all out o’ kilter.  But don’t let any thought of her bother you, Ida May.  Your uncle and I love you, and if forty people said you didn’t belong here, we should keep you just the same.  Ain’t that so, Ira?”

“Sure is,” declared the captain vigorously.  “No two ways about it.  We couldn’t get along without Ida May, and I cal’late, the way things look, that I’d better get that high fence I spoke of built around this place at once.  We’re likely to have somebody come here and carry the gal off almost any time.  I can see that danger as plain as plain!”

Prudence laughed, yet there was a catch in her voice too.  She kissed the girl’s tear-wet face tenderly.  Sheila’s heart throbbed so that she could scarcely go on with the task of shaving Cap’n Ira.  How could she continue to live this lie before two people who were so infinitely kind to her and who loved her so tenderly?

And the girl loved them in return.  It was no selfish thought which held Sheila Macklin here in the old house on Wreckers’ Head.  She had put aside all concern for her own personal comfort or ease.  Had it not been for her desire to shield Tunis and continue to aid and comfort Cap’n Ira and Prudence, she might quickly and quietly have left the place and thus have escaped all possibility of punishment for the deception she had practiced.