He had begun to imagine, too, how well this girl beside him would fit into the needs of the old couple living there alone on Wreckers’ Head.  It was an idle thought, of course.  He had no plan, or scheme, or definite suggestion in his mind.  It was only a wish, a keen longing for an impossible conjunction of circumstances which would have enabled him to present Sheila Macklin to Cap’n Ira and Prudence and say: 

“This is the girl you sent me for.”

“Just what will you do now that you have lost that job, Miss Macklin?” Tunis asked abruptly.

“Oh, after I am rested, I will go home!”

He had a sudden flash of the memory of that stark lodging house where Ida May Bostwick lived, and he felt assured this girl’s home could be no better.  But he did not mention this thought.

“I did not mean it just that way,” he told her, smiling.  “First you and I will go and get supper somewhere.  I did not half finish mine, and you have had none at all.”

“I don’t know about that,” she interposed.  “It is generous of you.  But ought I to accept?”

“You need not question that.  We are going to be friends, Miss Macklin.  Is it necessary for me to bring you references?”

“It may be necessary for me to obtain a sponsor,” she said, quite seriously.  “You do not know a thing about me, Captain Latham.”

“You know nothing about me, except what I have told you.”  And he laughed.

“And what I read in your countenance,” she said soberly.

He grinned at her, but rather ruefully.

“I never knew my thoughts were advertised in my face.”

“Oh, no!  Not that!  But your character is.  Otherwise I would not be sitting here with you.”

“I guess that’s all right then,” he declared with satisfaction.  “Well, let’s call it a draw.  If you take me at face value, I’ll take you at the same rating.  Anyhow, we can risk going to supper together.”

“Well, somewhere to a quiet place.  Don’t take me where you are known, Captain Latham.”

“No?” He was puzzled again.  “But, then, I am not known anywhere in Boston.”

“All the better.  I ought not to lend myself in any way to making you possible future trouble.”

“I do not understand you, Miss Macklin.”

He sat up suddenly on the bench to look at her more sharply.  There was an underlying, but important, meaning to her speech.

“I know you do not understand,” she rejoined gently.  She sighed.  “I must make you clearly see just who I am and the risk you run in associating with me.”

“The risk I run!”

He uttered the words in both amazement and ridicule.

“You do not quite understand, Captain Latham,” she repeated in the same gentle tone.

There was no raillery in her voice now.  She was altogether serious.  Her eyes, luminous, yet darkly unfathomable, were held full upon his face.  He felt rather than saw that she was under a mental strain.  The revelation she was about to make throbbed in her voice when she spoke again.