Like the old man, Prudence finally realized that there was something wrong—something very wrong, indeed—with the girl they had known for months as Ida May and whom they had learned to love so dearly.
Nobody looking at Sheila could doubt this for a moment. Her tortured expression of countenance, the wild light in her eyes, her trembling lips, advertised to the beholders that the last bastion of her fortress was taken, that the wall was breached and into that breach now marched the triumphant phrases of the real Ida May's bitter, gloating speech.
"Look at her!" repeated the latter. "She can't deny it now. She knows I know her and what she is. Why, Aunt Prue—and you, Captain Ball—have been fooled nice, I must say. And that Tunis Latham! Well, he can't be much!"
"Don't—don't say anything against Tunis!"
It was not a voice at all like the usual mellow tones of Sheila Macklin which uttered those faint words. Hoarse, strained, uncertain, there was yet a note of command in the phrase which had its influence on the wildly excited Ida May.
"I'll say what I've got to say about you, miss!" she exclaimed with exultation. "And you—nor they—shan't stop me. You're the girl that was arrested in the store for stealing. It must have been two—why, it must have been more than three years ago. I hadn't worked there but a little while. No wonder I didn't remember you at first."
Cap'n Ira vented a groan and caught at his wife's hand. She was sobbing frantically. She still murmured her plea for the captain to stop the awful revelation Ida May was bent on making. But the latter gave no heed and the captain himself was speechless.
"And I can't remember her name even now," went on Ida May, flashing a look at the Balls. Their pitiful appearance made no impression upon her. "But that don't matter. I guess they've got your record at Hoskin & Marl's. You worked there all right; sure you worked there, in the jewelry section. You stole something. I saw the store detective, Miss Hopwell, take you up to the manager's office. I never heard what they did to you, but they did a plenty, I bet."
She turned confidently again to the horrified captain and his wife.
"Just see how she looks. She don't deny it. How she managed to work that Tunis Latham into bringing her down here, I don't know. She pulled the wool over his eyes all right.