of the impostor
abashed Ida May Bostwick. After her first outbreak she was silenced.

"Do you really know what you are saying?" the girl in possession
asked. "Are you aware that I am Ida May Bostwick? There certainly
cannot be two girls of the same name, both related to Mrs. Prudence
Ball. That is too ridiculous."

The other gasped. Though red and white by turn, from impotence and
rage, her fury was quelled under the look of the more composed young
woman.

"There are twenty people almost within call who know me and who can
swear to my name and my assertions that I am Miss Bostwick," went on
Sheila, with a calmness which both frightened and daunted the other.
"Just why you should come here and make such a preposterous claim I
cannot understand. Where do you come from? Who are you--really?"

Ida May stared, flaccid, helpless. For the time being all her rage,
her rudeness, her amazement, even, drained out of her. For this
impostor to face her down in this way; for her to claim Ida May's
name and identity with such utter calm--such sangfroid; for Sheila
to stand before her and deliberately declare that what Ida May had
known to be her own all her life long--her name and distinctive
character--was actually another's--all this was so monstrous a thing
that Ida May was stunned.

Suppose--suppose something had really happened to her mind? People
did go mad, Ida May had heard. She had rather a vague idea as to
what insanity was like, but she felt her mind slipping.

The sure and unafraid expression of the other girl's countenance
gave Ida May no help at all. She was sure that her opponent had not
lost her mind. She was just a wicked, bad, horrid girl who had
somehow got something that belonged to Ida May Bostwick, and meant
to keep it if she could.

Self-pity filled the visitor's mind in place of the fury she had
expended in her first outburst. She dared not attack the other with
tooth and nail, for she saw now that this girl was as much her
superior in physical strength as she was in strength of character.

Therefore, Ida May fell back upon tears. She blubbered right
heartily, and, being really weary after her walk from the port, she
fell back into the spring rocker, which squeaked almost as
protestingly as she did, put her beringed hands before her face, and
gave herself to grief.

Sheila Macklin's expression did not change. She revealed no sympathy
for Ida May Bostwick. If she felt sympathy, it was for that girl