"And poor Aunt Prudence—and poor me!" exclaimed Tunis. "What do you think is going to happen to me? If you go away, I shall have to sell all I own in the world and follow you."
"Tunis!" she cried, almost in fear. "You wouldn't."
"I certainly would. I am going to have you, one way or another. Nobody else shall get you, Sheila. And you can't go far enough or fast enough to lose me."
"Don't!" she said faintly. "You cannot be in earnest. Do you know what it means if you and I have any association whatsoever? Oh! I thought this was all over—that you would not tear open the wound—"
"I don't mean to hurt you, Sheila," he said softly. But he was smiling. "I have got something to tell you that will, I believe, put an entirely different complexion on your affairs."
"What—what can you mean?" she burst out. "Oh, tell me!"
"I'll tell you a little of it now. Just enough to keep you from thinking I am crazy. The rest I will not tell you save in the Balls' sitting room before Cap'n Ira and Aunt Prue."
"Tunis!" she murmured with clasped hands.
"Yesterday I spent two hours in the manager's office of Hoskin & Marl's. They have been looking for you for more than six months. Naturally, there was no record of you after you left that—that school when your time was out. They didn't seem to guess you'd have got work in that Seller's place."
"What do you mean? What did they want me for?" gasped the girl.