Sellers gives girls work in his
restaurant who could by no possibility offer proper references,
girls from the Protectory, from homes, as they are called; some,
even, who have served jail sentences. I had been two years in the
St. Andrew's School for Girls when I went to work for Sellers."
CHAPTER IX
A GIRL'S STORY
There was a ringing in Tunis Latham's ears. As you make Paulmouth
Harbor coming from seaward, on a thick day you hear the insistent
tolling of the bell buoy over Bitter Reef. That was the distant, but
incessant sound that the captain of the _Seamew_ seemed to hear as
he sat on that bench on Boston Common beside this strange girl.
Without being a prig, Tunis Latham was undeniably a good man.
Whether he was altogether a wise man was perhaps a subject for
argument. At least, his future conduct must settle that point.
But for the moment, when Sheila Macklin had made her last statement,
it seemed that every atom of thought and all ability to consider
matters logically were drained out of the man's mind. That mind was
perfectly blank. What the girl had said seemed mere sound, sound
without meaning. He could not grasp its significance.
And yet he knew it was tragic.
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