bench on Boston Common and planning
to lie to these dear, good people down here--and everybody; while we
were beginning this coil of deceit and trouble, I might have gone
back there to the store and found all this out. And--and I would
never have needed to lie and deceive as I have done."

"Huh! Yes. I cal'late that's so, Sheila," he said. "But how about
me? Where would I have come in, if you had found out that your name
had been cleared and Hoskin & Marl were anxious to do well by you?
Seems to me, Sheila, there must be some compensation in that
thought. There is for me, at any rate."

She flashed him a look then that cleaved its way to Tunis Latham's
very soul. His tale did not remove from her heart all its burden.
She was still penitent for the falsehood she had told in direct
words to Cap'n Ira and Prudence about her first meeting with Tunis.
But that prevarication, at least, had been for no purpose of self
gain.

And so Sheila looked at her lover for just that passing moment with
all the passion which filled her heart for him. Had Tunis not been
steering the _Seamew_ through a pretty tortuous channel at just that
moment there is no knowing what he would have done--spurred by
Sheila's look!

CHAPTER XXXIII

A HAVEN OF REST

Wreckers' Head so shelters the cove from the northeast that the
schooner could be brought safely in to Luiz Wharf, instead of
dropping her anchor in deep water. Half the port, and all of
Portygee Town, crowded nearby wharves and streets to welcome Tunis
Latham's schooner; for news of her peril and the way in which help
had reached the _Seamew_ had come down from the Head as on the wings
of the wind itself.

There was one face on the wharf Tunis Latham sought out with grim
persistency as the schooner was made fast. He had purposely placed
Sheila in Zebedee Pauling's care. Tunis kept, directly under his
hand, the broken oar which had helped to make so much of his recent
trouble. When the _Seamew_ was safe, her skipper leaped ashore. And
he carried the broken oar with him.

Orion, grinning and sneering by turns, saw his cousin coming. It
must have been preternatural sagacity which caused him to see and
recognize the broken oar. Having seen it, he jumped for the head of
the wharf.

Tunis leaped away on his cousin's trail. The crowd parted to let
them through, and then joined in a streaming, excited tail to their
kite of progress. Most of the spectators lived in Portygee Town.
S