Tunis could not have walked up to any adult person on Wreckers’ Head and asked the question which he put to little John-Ed on the spur of the moment: 

“Where is she?”

He did not have to utter Sheila’s name.  Indeed, he was doubtful by what name it would be wise to call her.  But he did not have to be plainer with little John-Ed. He saw in the sly expression of the boy’s eyes that he knew whom he meant.  But he shook his head.

“You know where she went,” was the schooner captain’s accusation.  “Where is she?”

“I—­I can’t tell you,” stammered the boy.  “I promised not.”

A promise is a promise, especially to a small boy who scorns to “snitch.”  Tunis thought a moment.

“Show me,” he said, and his voice had in it that tone which made the foremast hands jump to obey when a squall was coming.

The boy got promptly off the wall.

“All right,” he said gruffly.  “But don’t you tell her I showed you, Cap’n Tunis Latham.”

“Trust me,” agreed the captain of the Seamew, and followed after little John-Ed with such tremendous strides that the latter had to run to keep ahead of him.

Tunis was led to that point on the bluff from which a curl of smoke from the cabin chimney could be seen.  He halted almost in horror—­stricken to the heart when he understood.

“Alone?” he muttered.

“Yep,” was the reply.  “She’s playing she’s a castaway.  Nobody but me knows it.”

Then, fearing he had said too much, John-Ed ran away.

Tunis descended the bluff by a perilous path—­he would not delay to go around by the cart track—­and came in plain view of the cabin.  The door hinge had been repaired, and the door now swung freely.  A strip of cotton cloth had been tacked over the gaping window.  There was that neatness about the abandoned cabin which must always be associated in his mind with Sheila Macklin, even had he not seen her sitting pensively upon a driftwood timber by the door.

The ax had been doing good service, for there was a great heap of wood cut into stove lengths.  The fragrant odor of something—­chowder, perhaps—­simmering on the stove, floated through the open door.

It was the coarse sand crunching under his boots which aroused her.  She did not start at his approach, but raised her eyes languidly.  He wondered if she had expected him.  She must have seen the Seamew pass several hours earlier as they headed in toward the channel.

“My God, Sheila!” he exclaimed with bitterness, but without anger.  “You can’t stay here.”

“I must—­for a while.  No.  Don’t talk about it, please, Tunis.”  Her gesture had a finality to it which silenced the objections rising to his lips.  “Nothing you can say will change my determination.  And you must not come here again.”

“What will people say?” he gasped.

The violet eyes blazed suddenly while she surveyed him.  This was not the girl he had known before.  At least, she was not the same as when he had seen her last.  Even at that previous interview her look and manner had not so reminded him of the girl he had sat beside on the bench on Boston Common.