? And he ain't here to defend himself, if we be."

The elder nodded slowly. His gaze did not leave Sheila's face.

"I think I can promise that in her name. Indeed, I had already
extracted such a promise before I would undertake to come up here. I
have warned Mrs. Pauling not to repeat a word the girl said to her.
And Zebedee is a prudent young man."

"I told Zeb myself to keep his hatch battened," growled Cap'n Ira.
"But, I swan, Ida May! I don't see how you can bear to have the
crazy critter here. And Prudence--"

"If Ida May says she is willing," sighed the old woman, glad to be
able to set a course not opposed to her minister's advice.

"Thank you, young woman," Elder Minnett said, speaking grimly enough
to Sheila. "Those who have nothing to fear can afford to be
generous. You have done right."

The subject was dropped--to the relief of all of them. Tea was
poured from the marble-topped, black-walnut table, and Sheila passed
biscuit, jam, cakes, and other delicacies. She performed her part of
the ceremony with apparent calm. She did not speak to the elder
again, nor he to her, save when she ran out to carry forgotten
gloves to him when he had climbed into the automobile.

The grim old man shot her through with the keenest of keen glances
as he accepted the gloves.

"I don't think, young woman," he said softly, "that you are likely
to put poison in that other girl's tea--as she says she's afraid you
will."

Then he drove away.

CHAPTER XXVII

CAP'N IRA SPEAKS OUT

Wrung as Sheila's heart had been by the expression of the old
woman's utter confidence in her and by Cap'n Ira's warm words of
approbation spoken before the elder, it was nevertheless for Tunis
Latham's sake that she had abetted the minister's desire and had
agreed that the real Ida May Bostwick should come to the Ball house
on Wreckers' Head.

By extracting a promise from Ida May that she would talk to nobody
for the present--especially about the connection of the captain of
the _Seamew_ with Ida May's affairs--Sheila believed she had entered
a wedge which might open the way for the young man to escape from a
situation which threatened both his reputation and his peace of
mind.

To save Tunis! She was fairly obsessed by that thought. Her vow
before the picture of Tunis' mother in the _Seamew's_ cabin must be
in Sheila's view to the very end. She had a sufficient share of
that vision of the Celt to be deeply impressed by a promise