y at
Sheila. "And you'll just listen to something I've got to say. If you
don't, I'll go out to-morrow and tell everybody in this hick town.
I'll hire a hall to tell 'em in!"

"Won't--won't you be good, deary?" begged Prudence, before her
husband could make any rejoinder to this defiance. "You know you
promised Elder Minnett you would be if we let you come here."

"I don't want to stay here. I've seen enough of this place and you
all! And I would be ashamed to stay any longer than I can help with
folks that take in such a girl as she is."

Again Ida May's little claw indicated Sheila, who stared,
speechless, helpless, at least for the time being. The harassed girl
could fight for herself no longer. She knew that she was on the
verge of betrayal. She could not stem the tide of Ida May's venom.
The latter must make the revelation which had threatened ever since
she had come to Wreckers' Head. There was no way of longer
smothering the truth. It would come out!

"Look here," Cap'n Ira said, his curiosity finally aroused, "the
elder says you ain't crazy! But it looks to me--"

"I'm not crazy, I can tell you," snapped Ida May, taking him up
short. "But I guess you and Aunt Prue must be. Why, you don't even
know the name of this girl you took in instead of me--in my rightful
place. But I can tell you who she is--and what she's done. I
remember her now. I knew I'd seen her before--the hussy!"

"Belay that!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira.

But he said it faintly. He was looking at the other girl now, and
something in her expression and in her attitude made him lose
confidence. His voice died in his throat. Ida May Bostwick had the
upper hand at last--and she kept it.

"Look at her," she exulted, the green lights in her brown eyes
glinting like the sparkling eyes of a serpent. "Look at her. She
knows that I know. She's come down here and fooled you all, but she
can't fool you any longer. And that Tunis Latham! Why, it can't be
possible he knew what she was from the first!"

"See here," said Cap'n Ira shakily. "What do you mean? What are you
getting at--or trying to? If you got anything to say about Ida May,
get it out and be over with it."

"Oh, Ira! Don't! Stop her!" wailed Prudence.

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 th