herself would have looked no older or more decrepit than
did the girl now leaving the Ball premises.

She did not follow the same course that the captain and Queenie had
followed on that memorable occasion, but took a path that led to a
cart track to the beach behind John-Ed Williams' house. Nobody was
astir anywhere on Wreckers' Head but herself.

In an hour she arrived at the objective point toward which she had
been headed from the first. Why and how she had thought of this
refuge it would be hard to tell. Least of all could Sheila have
explained her reason for coming here. It was in her mind, it was
away from all other human habitations, and she did not think anybody
would have the right to drive her from it.

The cabin formerly occupied by Hosea Westcott was well above the
tide, was, or could be made, perfectly dry, was roughly, if not
comfortably furnished, and offered the girl a shelter in which she
thought she would be safe.

To one who had spent such weary months in a narrow room in a Hanover
Street lodging house, going in and out with speech with scarcely any
one save the person to whom she paid her weekly dole of rent, there
could be no loneliness in a place like this, where the surf soughed
continually in one's ear, a hundred feathered forms flashed by in an
hour, sails dotted the dimpling sea, and the strand itself was
spread thick with many varieties of nature's wonders.

During the summer and early fall, Sheila had become a splendid
oarswoman. In a skiff belonging to little John-Ed which was drawn up
on the sands not far from the cabin she had paddled out through the
narrow neck of the tiny cove's entrance and pulled bravely through
the surf and out upon the sea beyond. She had learned more than a
bit of sea lore, too, from Cap'n Ira and Tunis. And regarding the
edible shellfish to be found along the beaches, she was well
informed.

If an old man such as Hosea Westcott, feeble and spent, no doubt,
could pick up a living here, why could not she? Sheila did not fear
starvation. Indeed, she did not even look forward to such a
possibility. She did not fear work of any kind. With every salt
breath she drew, strength, like the tide itself, flowed into her
body. Although her mind remained in a partially stunned condition,
her muscles soon recovered their vigor.

Of course the girl's presence here in the abandoned cabin, her
taking up a hermit life on the shore, could not remain unknown to
the neighbors