She knew, at last, that somebody was on the road, but she would not look.  She heard the latch of the gate and the creak of its hinges.  Somebody was behind her.  How softly Tunis stepped!  She thought that he was approaching her quietly, believing he could surprise her.  In a moment she would feel his arms about her and would surprise him by laying her head back against his breast and putting up her lips to be kissed.

But, as he delayed, she turned her head ever so slyly.  It was not the heavily shod feet of Tunis Latham she saw.  What she saw was a pair of the very lightest of pearl-gray shoes, wonderful of arch and heel.  Above were slim ankles and calves incased in fiber-silk hose the hue of the shoes.

She flashed a glance at the face of the stranger, and her gaze was immediately held by a pair of fixed brown eyes.  There were green glints in the eyes—­sharp, suspicious gleams that warned Sheila, before the other uttered a word, to set watch and ward upon her own lips.  Not that she suspected who the stranger was.

“Good afternoon,” was her greeting.

“Is this where the Balls live?” was the demand, with a note in the voice which betokened both weariness and vexation.

“Yes.”

The girl set down her bag and gave a sigh of relief.

“Well, I am glad!  I thought I’d never get here.  I never did hear of such a hick place!  No taxi, of course, and not even a hack or any other carriage to be hired.  I’ve walked miles.  And such a rough road!”

The parlor settee and easy-chairs had just been brought outdoors for their weekly beating and dusting.  Sheila pointed to a seat.

“Do sit down,” she urged.  “It is a long walk from the port.”

“You said it!  And after riding over from Paulmouth in that dinky old stagecoach, too,” went on the stranger, as though holding Sheila responsible for some measure of her discomfort.  “Say, ain’t the folks home?” She cast a sour look around the premises.  “Gee!  It’s a lonesome place in winter, I bet.”

“Did you wish to see Mrs. Ball?” asked Sheila, eying the visitor with nothing more than curiosity.

“I guess so.  She is Mrs. Prudence Ball, isn’t she?”

“Yes.  Mrs. Ball and the captain have gone away for the day.  I am ever so sorry.  You wished to see her particularly?”

“I guess I did.”  The stranger looked her over with more interest.  “Say, how old are the Balls?”

The abrupt question drew a more penetrating look from Sheila.  The visitor certainly was not Cape bred.  Her smart cheapness did not attract Sheila at all.  There was something so unwholesome about her that the observer had difficulty in suppressing a shudder.  Yet her prettiness was orchidlike.  But there are poisonous orchids.

“They are quite old people,” Sheila said, finally answering the question.  “Cap’n Ira is over seventy and Prudence is not far from that age.  You—­you are not acquainted with them?”