Possibly Tunis might be successful in an
attempt to interest the Balls in Sheila Macklin's case. But the girl
did not want charity, not charity as the word is used in its general
and harsher sense.
Should she carry with her wherever she went this name which had been
so smirched--the identity of Sheila Macklin, the ghost of whose past
misfortune might rise to shame her at any time--the girl could never
be happy. Did Tunis Latham succeed in getting the Balls to take
Sheila in and give her a home, this story that so bowed her down
would continually threaten its revelation, like a pirate ship
hovering in the offing!
And there was, too, a deeper reason why he could not introduce
Sheila Macklin to Big Wreck Cove folk. It was no reason he could
give the girl at this time. In some ways the captain of the _Seamew_
was wise enough. He felt that this was no time to put forward his
personal and particular desires. Enough that she had admitted him
to her friendship and had given him her confidence.
She had accepted him in all good faith in a brotherly sense. He
dared not spoil his influence with her by revealing a deeper
interest.
"We may as well look at this thing calmly and sensibly," Tunis said,
answering her statement of what was indubitably a fact.
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