h as Sheila Macklin felt that her own happiness with Tunis was
now impossible--a flash of Aunt Lucretia made this realization the
more poignant--he must be sheltered from any folly regarding this
thing. She knew well his impulsive, generous nature. Who had a
fuller knowledge of it than she?

She must think and act for herself, without any conference with
Tunis. But she must do the only thing, after all, that would balk
this wretched girl from the city--for a time, at least.

The real Ida May Bostwick had no friends here and no acquaintances
among the people of Big Wreck Cove. It would be no easy matter for
her to establish either credit or the fact of her identity in the
community. It would take time and perhaps be very difficult for Ida
May to bring forward conclusive evidence that would convince the
Balls, or anybody else, of her real personality and prove that the
girl in possession was an impostor.

All the latter had to do was to maintain her already-accepted
standing, deny the true Ida May's claim, and demand that the latter
show proof of her apparently preposterous statement. At least, some
considerable delay must ensue through Sheila's course before the
girl could convince anybody that she only claimed what was her own.

Nor need the battle end there. Ida May Bostwick might find it very
difficult to prove to the satisfaction of all concerned that she was
the actual niece of Prudence Ball. The very fact that Tunis had
brought Sheila and introduced her as the girl he had been sent for
was proof so strong that it could not be lightly denied.

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