"You ain't going to stand for her stayin' here any longer, are you?" demanded the amazed Ida May.
"Whether or not she stays here is more my business and Prudence's business than it is yours," said the old man. "But there's one thing sure, and you may as well l'arn it first as last: you're not to speak to her nor do anything else to annoy her. Understand?"
"You—you—"
"Heed what I tell ye!" said Cap'n Ira, grim-lipped and with flashing eyes. "You interfere with that girl in any way and it won't be her I'll put out o' the house. I'll put you out—night though it is—and you'll march yourself down to the port and to the Widder Pauling's alone. Understand me?"
There was silence again in the kitchen, save for Prudence's pitiful sobbing.
In Tunis Latham's mind as he came up from the port four days later was visioned no part of the tragedy which had occurred at the Ball homestead during his absence on this last voyage to Boston. He had suffered trouble enough during the trip even to dull the smart of Sheila's renunciation of him before he had left the Head. Indeed, he could scarcely realize even now that she had meant what she said—that she could mean it!
So brief had been their dream of love—only since that recent Sunday when they walked the beaches about the foot of Wreckers' Head—that it seemed to the captain of the Seamew it could not be so soon over. If Sheila really and truly loved him, how could anything part them?
When he considered her wild manner and her trenchant words when last he had seen her, however, his heart sank. He had gained during the few months of their acquaintance a pretty accurate idea of how firm she could be—how unwavering in face of any difficulty. He realized that her obstinacy, when her mind was once settled on a course of action, was not easily overcome. She had declared that they could not be lovers any longer; that the situation which had arisen through the appearance of the real Ida May upon Wreckers' Head had made her decision necessary; and she had refused to consider any other outcome of this dreadful affair.
In his business there was much which would have disturbed Tunis in any event. The negro cook had deserted the Seamew the moment after she touched the Boston wharf. Although the other hands had remained by the schooner until she had just now dropped anchor in the cove below, he was not at all sure that they would sail with him for another voyage.