Sheila had borne his reputation upon her heart from the beginning, but he should have at first thought of her good name and the opinion the world must needs hold of Sheila Macklin.  She had been unfairly accused.  She had been abused, ill-treated, punished for a sin which was not hers.  It was not enough that he had tried to help her hide away from those who knew of her persecution.  The only right thing to do—­the only sane course, and the one which should have been pursued from the start—­was to attempt to disprove the accusation under which the girl had suffered and set her right not only before Big Wreck Cove folk, but before the whole world.

The poignant feeling of sin committed, with which Sheila herself was now burdened, did not influence Tunis Latham.  It was the logic of the idea which convinced him that they had been totally wrong in what they had done.  He should have married Sheila on the night they had met in Boston and set about first of all tracing back her trouble and disproving the flimsy evidence which must have convicted her of stealing from Hoskin & Marl’s.

He told himself it was not piety, but hard common sense which suggested this as the only and practical way to handle the matter.  It was, in truth, the awakened hope in a loving heart.

Tunis had been able to keep scarcely enough of his crew to handle the Seamew in fair weather; and the barometer was falling, with every indication in sea and sky of the approach of bad weather.  He feared the few hands he had would desert when they reached Boston.  Zebedee Pauling was a young host in himself—­far and away a better seaman than Orion Latham, as well as a better fellow.  But the schooner could not be sailed with good will.

Tunis’ mind, however, remained fixed upon Sheila’s troubles rather than upon his own; and as soon as the schooner docked, he went up into the town and wended his way directly to the great department store in which he had once interviewed the troublesome Ida May Bostwick.

* * * * *

The cargo was out, and the Seamew had already been warped into another wharf where freight was awaiting her when the skipper returned to the water front that afternoon.  The three men remaining of the forecastle crew were still at work, assisted by Zebedee and Horry Newbegin.  They had not had a regular cook for two trips now.

But a new complication had arisen.  Mason Chapin stood at the rail waiting his return, and a taxicab had been summoned.  The mate carried a bag.

“A telegram from Doctor Norris.  My wife’s worse, Mr. Latham.  I’ve got to go back just as fast as steam will get me there,” was his greeting to the skipper of the Seamew.

This was according to the agreement Mason Chapin had made in the beginning.  His wife was sorely ill, and surely Tunis would not stand between a man and his sick wife!

But it left a very serious situation upon the schooner when the mate drove away in the taxicab.  Six men, forward and aft, to handle a suit of sails which equaled those of any seagoing racing yacht.  If it had not been for the freight—­some of which was perishable—­the master of the Seamew would have laid up until he could have got together a more numerous crew at least.