CHAPTER XXX

THE STORM

Captain Tunis Latham, pacing the deck of the Seamew, had come to a conclusion which was by no means complimentary to his own self-respect.  During his manifold duties and the business bothers connected with the sailing of the undermanned schooner, his mind had seized upon and grappled with a train of ideas which brought him logically to the decision that he was playing a weak and piffling part.

Strong in most things, Tunis Latham had allowed his better sense to be throttled and his purpose balked in the thing which meant more to him than the schooner, his business success, or anything else in life.  The broader the rift grew between Sheila and himself, the clearer he saw that without her he was a ship without a rudder and that nothing could come of his life save wreck and disaster.

She had renounced him for his own good, as she believed, and he had tacitly consented to her ruling.  He might be slow of thought regarding such things, but once having made up his mind—­and it was made up now—­he was of the kind that obstacles do not frighten.

Not only did he realize that by bowing to the girl’s will he had been weak, but he was determined to take matters in the future into his own hands.  He should not have allowed Sheila, in the first place, to shoulder the responsibility of handling the emergency of the appearance of the real Ida May Bostwick at Big Wreck Cove.

Sheila, in an attempt to save his reputation, to save his self-respect in the eyes of the home folks and of the world in general, had uttered a direct falsehood and cut herself off from him and from those who loved her.  This was too much for any decent man to stand.  Was he a coward?  Would he shelter himself—­as he had told her—­behind her skirts?

Tunis believed that Cap’n Ira and Prudence, when once the shock of the girl’s revelation was past, loved her so dearly that they would forgive Sheila if they knew all the truth—­if they knew the girl as he knew her.  He was not so sure of Aunt Lucretia.  He had feared to tell her the night before that Sheila had gone to live in the old fisherman’s cabin, in spite of the sympathy Lucretia had previously shown him.  But he believed his silent aunt fully appreciated the better qualities of the girl she had seen on but one occasion, and that she would, in time, admit that Sheila was more than worthy of her nephew’s love.

In any event he had his own life to make or mar.  Without Sheila he knew it would be utterly fruitless and without an object.  Rather than lose Sheila he would sell the schooner, cut himself off from friends and home, and, with her, face the world anew.  He was determined, if Sheila left Big Wreck Cove, that he would go with her.  Nobody—­not even the girl herself—­could shake this determination now born in the mind of the captain of the Seamew.