She crossed the hall and opened the sitting room door.  Cap’n Ira sat in his usual chair, leaning forward, with his hands clasped over the knob of his cane.  Prudence, with a wondering look on her face, sat beside him, and just as far from the new girl as the length of the room would allow.  The latter had been speaking with her usual vehemence, and she did not even glance at Sheila when the latter came quietly into the room.

“Oh, Ida May!” gasped Prudence, and almost ran to her.  “Do you know what she is saying?  I never heard of such a thing!”

“I tell you she ain’t Ida Bostwick,” cried the other.  “Don’t you dare call her that.  I’ll—­”

“Hoity-toity, young woman!  Avast there!” said the captain gruffly.  “We won’t get to the rights of this by quarreling.  Wait!”

He looked at Sheila, and his weatherhued countenance was as kindly of expression as usual.

“You know what this young woman says?” he asked.

Sheila nodded, but she held Prudence closely.  The old woman was sobbing.

“This won’t do, you know,” said Cap’n Ira.  “I swan!  It beats my time.  I expect you’ve got friends somewhere, young woman, and you ought to be given into their charge.  I’m real sorry for you, but what you say don’t sound sensible.  Ain’t you made a mistake?  I cal’late you heard about us and Ida May—­”

“I tell you,” cried the girl, starting to her feet again, the brown eyes flashing spitefully, “that that thing there is an impostor.  She’s got my place.  She’s took my name.  Why, I’ll—­I’ll have her arrested.  Ain’t there no police in this awful place?”

“There’s a constable all right,” said Cap’n Ira calmly.  “But I wouldn’t want to call him in.  Not just now, anyway.  It looks to me you wanted a doctor more than you wanted a constable.”

“You think I’m crazy!” gasped Ida May.

“Well, it looks as though you was a leetle off your course,” the old man told her calmly.  “You don’t talk with sense, to say the least.  Making the claim you do would make most anybody think you was a little flighty.  Yes, a little flighty, to say the least.”  And he wagged his head.

“Look here,” he pursued soothingly.  “Have you been sick, perhaps?  You ain’t quite yourself, be ye?  I knowed a feller once that thought he was the angel Gabriel and went around with a tin fish horn, tooting it at all hours of the day and night.  But no graves opened for him and nobody was resurrected.  They finally put him in the booby hatch, poor feller.”

“I’m your niece, I tell you,” interrupted Ida May, pointing at Prudence, who shrank from her immediately in undeniable fear.  “My mother was Sarah Honey before she was married.  I guess there must be enough people in this Big Wreck Cove place who knew her and remember her to prove who I am.”

“I wouldn’t try to do that,” said Cap’n Ira thoughtfully.  “Telling such a thing as this among the neighbors would be the surest way of getting into trouble.  That’s right.  If Prudence—­Mrs. Ball—­don’t know ye, do you think strangers would be likely to back you up?  Don’t you think it would be better to sit down quietly and rest a while?  Maybe you’d better stay with us overnight.”