“I don’t believe it!” snapped Ida May.

But Cap’n Ira put her aside with his hand, and there was returned firmness in his voice.

“Is this the truth?  Are you what she says you are?” he asked.

“Oh, don’t, Ira!” gasped his sobbing wife.  “She—­”

“We’ve got to learn the straight of it,” said the old man sternly.  “If we’ve been bamboozled, we’ve got to know it.  Now’s the time for her to speak.”

Sheila was still gazing at him.  She nodded, indicating that his question was already answered.

“You—­you mean to say you stole—­like she says?”

“I was arrested in Hoskin & Marl’s.  They accused me of stealing.  Yes.”

She said no more.  She turned, when he did not speak again, and walked slowly to the stairway door.  She opened it and went up, closing the door behind her.

It was Ida May who moved first when she was gone.  She jumped up once more and started for the stairway.

“I’ll tell her what’s what!” she ejaculated.  “The gall of her to come here and say she was me and get my rightful place!  I’ll put her out with my own hands!”

Somehow—­it would be hard to say just how—­Cap’n Ira was before her, ere she could arrive at the stairway door.

“Avast!” he said throatily.  “Don’t take too much upon yourself, young woman.  You don’t quite own these premises—­yet.”

“You ain’t going to stand for her stayin’ here any longer, are you?” demanded the amazed Ida May.

“Whether or not she stays here is more my business and Prudence’s business than it is yours,” said the old man.  “But there’s one thing sure, and you may as well l’arn it first as last:  you’re not to speak to her nor do anything else to annoy her.  Understand?”

“You—­you—­”

“Heed what I tell ye!” said Cap’n Ira, grim-lipped and with flashing eyes.  “You interfere with that girl in any way and it won’t be her I’ll put out o’ the house.  I’ll put you out—­night though it is—­and you’ll march yourself down to the port and to the Widder Pauling’s alone.  Understand me?”

There was silence again in the kitchen, save for Prudence’s pitiful sobbing.

* * * * *

In Tunis Latham’s mind as he came up from the port four days later was visioned no part of the tragedy which had occurred at the Ball homestead during his absence on this last voyage to Boston.  He had suffered trouble enough during the trip even to dull the smart of Sheila’s renunciation of him before he had left the Head.  Indeed, he could scarcely realize even now that she had meant what she said—­that she could mean it!

So brief had been their dream of love—­only since that recent Sunday when they walked the beaches about the foot of Wreckers’ Head—­that it seemed to the captain of the Seamew it could not be so soon over.  If Sheila really and truly loved him, how could anything part them?