That phase of the matter—­that Tunis was as deep in the conspiracy as she was herself—­made Sheila Macklin desperate.  She grasped at this only salvation—­straw as it was!—­for his sake more than for her own.

Later, when she was able to think and plan and plot again, she would evolve some method of rescuing Tunis from the results of his own impulsiveness and her weakness in accepting his suggestion as a way out of her personal difficulties.  She should have known better!  She should have scouted the idea at its inception!

She saw that this position in which she was placed was far and away more serious than that she had been in when she sat with Tunis upon the Boston Common bench.  She had thought at that time that it needed little more to make her condition too desperate to bear.  She would now, she felt, give life itself for the privilege of being back there and able to refuse the reckless plan of escape the captain of the Seamew had submitted to her.

She did not for a breath’s length blame Tunis for the misfortune that had overtaken her—­overtaken them both, indeed.  She had accepted his plan with open eyes.  In her desperation she had even foreseen the possibility of this outcome.  She must blame nobody but herself.

But all these thoughts were futile.  No use in considering for a single moment past situations and possibilities.  She was confronted by a grim and adamant present!  And that grim present was in the person of a girl with tear-streaked face who looked up at her, sobbing.

“You’re the meanest girl I ever heard of.  I’ll pay you for this.  Think of the gall of you comin’ here and tellin’ my rich relations you was me.  I never heard of such a thing!  It beats the movies, and and I thought they was just lies.  Gee, but you must be a regular crook!  I expect the very clothes you got on my aunt bought and gave you.  I’ll put you where you belong!”

“And suppose I put you where you seem to belong?” interrupted the girl in possession.  “There is such a place as an insane hospital in this county, I believe.  I think you must have either escaped from such a place, or that you belong in one.”

“Oh!” gasped the other girl, staring up at her amazedly and not a little terrified by Sheila’s emphatic speech.

“If you really are some distant relative of the family,” the latter continued, “Mrs. Ball may wish to see you.  Come into the house and I will make you a cup of tea.  You need it.  And you can wait for Mrs. Ball and the captain to return, if you like.”

Ida May darted to her feet again.

“A cup of tea of your making!” she cried.  “You’d put poison in it!  You must be a wicked girl—­anybody can see that.  I wouldn’t put anything bad past you.  I guess them stories in the movies ain’t so much lies, after all.

“I want nothing from you, whoever you are, only my name back and the chance you have grabbed off here.  I’ll go to the neighbors about it.  I’ll tell ’em what you’ve done.  I guess I can find somebody to believe me.”