"Ida May!"
"That is not my name," she whispered. "Let there be no further mockery between you and me, Tunis. I have been wicked; _we_ have been wicked. We must pay for what we have done. There is no escaping that. I must not keep you as my lover, Tunis. I was wrong--oh! so wrong--last Sunday. Reckless, wicked, drifting with a current, I scarcely knew where."
"My dear girl--"
"Now I see the rocks ahead, Tunis. I can shut my eyes to them no longer. Disaster is at hand. You shall not be overwhelmed, as I may be overwhelmed at any time. I will not have your ruin on my conscience!"
"My ruin?" he repeated. "Ridiculous! My dear girl, you are talking like a mad woman. You cannot snap the tie that binds us. You cannot shoulder all the responsibility for this situation. The sin is as much mine as yours, if it is a sin. I"m in it as deep as you are."
"You must not be," she cried. "You can escape. You _shall_ escape."
"Suppose I refuse to do so?" And he said it confidently.
"Tunis, I have thought of a way out for you," she cried suddenly.
"I don"t want to hear it."
"But you must hear it!"
"I will not accept it."
"You cannot help yourself," she told him firmly. "Oh, I know what I am about! You may be angry; you will perhaps be laughed at a bit.
But to be laughed at is better than to be scorned."
"What under the sun do you mean, girl?" he exclaimed, both startled and horrified by her determined words. "Do you think I would desert you in the middle of the current and swim ash.o.r.e?"
"But I will desert you. I am determined to desert you. I refuse to cling to you, a millstone about your neck to drag you down. Ah, Tunis, whether or not that girl makes her claim good, what you and I had hoped for cannot be! An explanation must be made of your part in this frightful affair. That, in itself, must separate you and me."
"What explanation? There is no such explanation that can be made. I glory in the fact that we are together in this, Sheila, and whatever comes of it, we stand or fall together!"
"Ah, Tunis, you _are_ a man! I knew that before. But nothing you can say will bend my determination. I withdraw all I said to you Sunday and on Monday morning before you went away. I positively withdraw all I promised you. It cannot be, Tunis. We cannot look forward to any happiness when we began so unwisely."
""Unwisely?" What do you mean?" demanded the captain of the _Seamew_. "Chance threw us together. _Providence_, I tell you! I needed you fully as much as you needed me. And surely these poor old folks needed you, Sheila. Consider what you have been to them."
"It makes no difference in our a.s.sociation, Tunis," she said, shaking her head.
"Why, that night we talked upon that bench on Boston Common, had I dared propose such a thing, I would have said: "Come and marry me now." I would, indeed, Sheila."
The girl clenched her hands and drew in a breath. She raised her face to his, and in the darkness Tunis Latham saw it shine with a light from within. A great and desperate longing filled her voice when she cried:
"Oh, why didn"t you do just that, Tunis Latham? I would have said "yes." And all this--_this_ need not have been."
Swiftly she caught him around the neck, pressed her lips fiercely to his, while the tears rained down her face, wetting his face as well.
Then she was gone. He heard her sobbing wildly in the dark. He was alone.
CHAPTER XXIII
A CALL UNANNOUNCED
Cap"n Ira and Prudence did not see Sheila again that evening, for she slipped in by the kitchen door after they had gone into the sitting room and went up to her own chamber. They heard her mount the stairs and marked the tread of her light feet overhead.
The girl was not thinking of the old people just then. Their need entered into her determination to remain if she could. But this night was one time when Sheila Macklin thought almost altogether of herself and her personal difficulties.
Her present and acknowledged love for the young captain of the _Seamew_ had been of no mushroom growth. She might not say, as Tunis did, that she had fallen in love at first sight. But very soon after meeting the young shipmaster from Big Wreck Cove she had appreciated his full value and realized that he was far and away the best man she had ever met.
Indeed, in that moment when Tunis Latham had caught Sheila in his arms as she had slipped in front of the restaurant on Scollay Square, the girl"s mind had been stabbed through by such a poignant feeling, such a desire to know more about him, that she was actually frightened by the strength of this concern.
She knelt before her north window with the frosty air breathing in like a balm upon her fevered body, and strained her eyes for a glimpse of the light that always burned in Tunis" window when he was at home. It was a long time before she saw it. For Tunis Latham had walked about the fields a long time after she left him, and it was late when he finally entered the big brown house behind the cedars.
Aunt Lucretia, who had been expecting him, after she had seen the _Seamew_ heading for the cove that afternoon, was still sitting in the kitchen when her nephew entered. Composed as the man"s features were, there was still an expression upon them which startled the woman. It brought her out of her chair, even if it did not bring an audible question to her lips.
"I was delayed, Aunt "Cretia," he said. "No; nothing new about the _Seamew_ or about business. It"s--there"s trouble up to the b.a.l.l.s"."
He knew her first thought would be for the health of the two old people, and he had to explain a little more.
"They are all right--Cap"n Ira and Aunt Prue. It"s about Sh--Ida May."
"Tunis! Nothing has happened to the girl?"
He must take Aunt Lucretia into his confidence--at least, to some extent. Just how much could he tell her? How much dared he tell her?
From somebody, he felt sure, she would hear about this other girl who had appeared to claim kinship with the b.a.l.l.s and demand that Sheila give over to her the place she had with Cap"n Ira and Prudence. For Ida May Bostwick was going to talk. Tunis knew that well enough. Although he had warned her sternly that evening against talking, he knew well enough that after the girl had recovered from her first fright she would spit out the venomous tale that she had already concocted in her mind about Sheila and himself.
He could not bring himself to confess to Aunt Lucretia all the truth about his first meeting and subsequent a.s.sociation with Sheila.
Indeed, he hoped he would never be obliged to tell it.
But he must tell Aunt Lucretia nothing but the truth. He did this by beginning at the coming of the real Ida May Bostwick to the Ball house that afternoon and her claim to Sheila"s place with the family. As he told the story, Aunt Lucretia gazed upon him so fixedly, so intently, that the captain of the _Seamew_ was disturbed. He could not understand her expression.
Perhaps he told the story haltingly of how Ida May had been turned out and he had taken her back to the port and housed her with Mrs.
Pauling. He made few comments, however; he left Aunt Lucretia to draw her own conclusions. It was not until he had quite finished that she spoke again.
"That crazy girl, is she--"
"I don"t know that she"s crazy," said Tunis gruffly.
"It would seem so. Does she look like Ida May?"
Tunis started. The question seemed to probe into a matter that he had not before considered. But he shook his head negatively.
"Nothing like her," he said. "Reddish hair. Brown eyes--or kind of brown. When she"s maddest there are green lights in "em. Not nice eyes at all."
Aunt Lucretia nodded and said no more upon that point. What her question had dealt with in her own mind, Tunis could not guess. She watched his face, now pale and sadly drawn. Then she placed a firm hand upon his arm to arouse his attention.
"Tunis! This--this girl at Cap"n Ira"s is something to you?"