the responsibility of handling the emergency of
the appearance of the real Ida May Bostwick at Big Wreck Cove.

Sheila, in an attempt to save his reputation, to save his
self-respect in the eyes of the home folks and of the world in
general, had uttered a direct falsehood and cut herself off from him
and from those who loved her. This was too much for any decent man
to stand. Was he a coward? Would he shelter himself--as he had told
her--behind her skirts?

Tunis believed that Cap'n Ira and Prudence, when once the shock of
the girl's revelation was past, loved her so dearly that they would
forgive Sheila if they knew all the truth--if they knew the girl as
he knew her. He was not so sure of Aunt Lucretia. He had feared to
tell her the night before that Sheila had gone to live in the old
fisherman's cabin, in spite of the sympathy Lucretia had previously
shown him. But he believed his silent aunt fully appreciated the
better qualities of the girl she had seen on but one occasion, and
that she would, in time, admit that Sheila was more than worthy of
her nephew's love.

In any event he had his own life to make or mar. Without Sheila he
knew it would be utterly fruitless and without an object. Rather
than lose Sheila he would sell the schooner, cut himself off from
friends and home, and, with her, face the world anew. He was
determined, if Sheila left Big Wreck Cove, that he would go with
her. Nobody--not even the girl herself--could shake this
determination now born in the mind of the captain of the _Seamew_.

Sheila had borne his reputation upon her heart from the beginning,
but he should have at first thought of her good name and the opinion
the world must needs hold of Sheila Macklin. She had been unfairly
accused. She had been abused, ill-treated, punished for a sin which
was not hers. It was not enough that he had tried to help her hide
away from those who knew of her persecution. The only right thing to
do--the only sane course, and the one which should have been pursued
from the start--was to attempt to disprove the accusation under
which the girl had suffered and set her right not only before Big
Wreck Cove folk, but before the whole world.

The poignant feeling of sin committed, with which Sheila herself was
now burdened, did not influence Tunis Latham. It was the logic of
the idea which convinced him that they had been totally wrong in
what they had done. He should have married Sheila on the night they
ha