“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 passed 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 nobody 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.

To save Tunis!  She was fairly obsessed by that thought.  Her vow before the picture of Tunis’ mother in the Seamew’s cabin must be in Sheila’s view to the very end.  She had a sufficient share of that vision of the Celt to be deeply impressed by a promise made as that had been made—­though in secret.  It was a sacred pledge.

It was no easy matter for any of the Ball household to consider the coming of Ida May with serenity.  Prudence, at heart, shrank from the claimant on her hospitality almost as much as Sheila did.  If Cap’n Ira hid his perturbation better than the others, he nevertheless hobbled about with a very solemn countenance.