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. It was something that had made the
girl what she was. It explained all Tunis had been unable heretofore
to understand about Sheila Macklin. That timidity, that whispering
shyness, the shrinking from observation and from any attention, were
all explained. She had suffered persecution and punishment, harsh
and undeserved, that made her recoil from contact with other more
fortunate people. She felt herself outcast, ostracized, and was
unable to defend herself from malign fortune.
Gradually Tunis regained his usual self-control.
If Sheila had said anything following the bare statement that she
had spent two years in the St. Andrew's Reformatory for Women, he
had not comprehended it. Nor could he have told how long he sat
silent on the bench getting control of his voice and of his tongue.
When he did speak he said quite casually:
"And what kind of a place is that--er--school, Miss Macklin?"
"You can imagine. It harbors the weak-minded, the vicious, and the
unfortunate runaway girls, thieves' consorts, and women of the
streets. It is, I think, a little like hell, if there really is such
a place, Captain Latham."
The poignancy of expression in her voice and words made the man
tremble. And yet she did not speak bitterly nor angrily. Her feeling
was beyond all passion. It was the expression of a soul that had
suffered everything and could no longer feel. That was just it,
Tunis told himself. It explained her attitude, even the tone of her
voice. She had endured and seen so much misery and heartache that
there seemed nothing left for her to experience.
"Can you bear to tell me what misfortune took you to that place?" he
asked gently, yet fighting down all the time that desire to roar
with rage.
"Why do you not say 'crime,' Captain Latham?" she asked in that same
low, strained voice.
"Because I know that crime and you could not be associated, Miss
Macklin," he said hoarsely.
At that she began suddenly to weep. Not aloud, but with her hands
pressed over her eyes and her shoulders, shaking with long,
shuddering sobs which betrayed how the horror of past thoughts and
experiences controlled her when once she gave way. Tunis Latham
could have behaved like a madman. That berserk rage that had seized
him in the restaurant welled up in his heart now. He gripped the
back of the bench till the slat cracked. But there was no opponent
here upon whom he could vent his violence that he longed to express.
"Don't cry! For God's sake, don't cry!" he whispered hoarsely. "I
know it was all a mistake. It must have been a mistake. How could
anybody have been so wicked, so utterly senseless, as to believe
you guilty of--of--what did they accuse you of?"
"Stealing," whispered the girl.
"'Stealing?' What nonsense!"
He put a wealth of disdain into the words. She sat up straighter.
She dropped her hands from her face and looked at him. Dark as it
was on the bench, he could see that her expression was one of
wonder.
"Do--do you really feel that way about it, Captain Latham?"
"It is ridiculous!" he acclaimed heartily.
She sighed. Her momentary animation fell and she spoke again:
"It did not seem ridiculous to the police or to the magistrate. I
worked in a store. A piece of sterling silverware disappeared. Other
pieces had previously been stolen. The police traced the last
missing piece to a pawnshop. The pawnbroker testified that a girl
pawned it. His identification of me was close enough to satisfy the
judge."
"My God!"
"I was what they call a first offender. At least, I had no police
record. Ordinarily I might have been let go under suspended sentence
or been put on probation. But I had nobody to say a good word for
me. I had been in Boston only a year, and I could not let people
where I came from know about my trouble. Even if the judge had
given me a jail sentence, I could have shortened it by good
behavior. He did what he thought was best, I suppose. He considered
me a hardened young criminal. He sent me to the St. Andrew's School
until I was twenty-one--two years. Two long, long years.
"Six months ago I got out and Sellers gave me a job. Now, that is
all, Captain Latham. You will readily see my position. I do not want
to go anywhere with you to eat where your friends are likely to see
you."
He uttered a sudden, stinging, harsh sound; then he removed his cap
and bent toward her.
"But what you have said--Why, were they all crazy? Couldn't they see
that such a thing would be impossible for you? Impossible!"
She put a hand gently on his arm to quiet his excitement, for others
were passing. Her eyes glowed up into his for an instant. Her lips
parted in a happier smile than he had seen on them before.
"Then you will not get up from this bench, Captain Latham, and
excuse yourself? I should not blame you if you did so."
"Do you think I'm that kind of a fellow?" he demanded bluntly.
"I--I told you I thought I had quite read your character in your
face. But that is no reason why I should take advantage of your
kindness to do you harm."
"Harm? How do you mean, 'harm?'"
"Sheila Macklin is a creature from a reformatory. She has been
sentenced by a magistrate. She was arrested by the police. She was
accused by her employers of theft, and the theft was proved. If any
of your friends should see you with me, and I should be identified
as the Sheila Macklin who was sentenced for stealing--"
"Cat's foot!" ejaculated Tunis with a sudden reversion to his usual
cheerful manner. "Are you going through the rest of your life
feeling like that?"
"Why shouldn't I? I am always expecting somebody to see and
recognize me. Even in Sellers' place. That man this evening, when he
called me 'jailbird'--"
"I wish I had wrung his neck!" exclaimed the captain of the _Seamew_
heartily.
"I appreciate your kindness." Her eyes twinkled. For a moment he
caught a glimpse of what Sheila Macklin must have been before
tragedy had come into her life. "You are a good, kind man, Captain
Latham."
"You just look on me as though I were your brother," he said
sturdily. "You are not going to be alone any more, not really. If
you had had friends before, when it happened, somebody to speak for
you, I am sure nothing like what did happen to you could have
happened."
"I come of respectable people," she said quietly. "But they are all
dead. I was an orphan before I came to Boston. The friends I had in
the little inland town I came from would not have understood. They
did not approve of my coming to the city at all. Oh, I wish I had
not come!"
"And now you ought not to stay here. Should you?"
"What can I do? I must support myself. I cannot go back. I could not
explain those two years. Yet I am always expecting somebody to make
inquiry for Sheila Macklin. And then I cannot conceal my story
longer."
He nodded thoughtfully. It seemed that, once she had opened the dam
of speech, she was glad to talk about herself and her trouble.
"I do hate the city. I have been so unhappy here. If I were only a
man I would start right out into the country. I would tramp until I
found a place to work. You don't know what it means to be a girl,
Captain Latham, and be in trouble."
"I guess all city girls aren't alike after all," he said with a
short laugh. Then he looked at her keenly again. "Do you know what
sort of an errand brought me up into the city from T-Wharf to-day?"
"What errand? I cannot imagine."
"There are two old people down on the Cape that I am much interested
in. They live near my home."
He told her quietly, yet with earnestness, about Cap'n Ira and
Prudence. He described their home and their need of some young
person to live with them, somebody who would not only help them, but
who would love to help them. Then he related, perhaps rather tartly,
his experience with Ida May Bostwick.
"What a foolish girl!" she breathed. "And she would not accept a
chance like that?"
"Lucky for Cap'n Ira and for Aunt Prue that she won't take up with
their offer," he said grimly. "But I dread taking back word to them
about her. It will be hard to make them understand. And then, they
need the help a good girl could give them."
"Captain Latham, if I only had a chance like that!" she exclaimed.
"I'd work my fingers to the bone for a home like that, for shelter,
and kindness, and--and--oh, well, some girls have all the best of
it, I guess!"
She sighed. It was half a sob. He saw her hands clasp tightly before
her in the dusk. The gesture was like a prayer. He knew that her
pale face was flushed with earnestness. He cleared his throat.
"You have the chance, if you want it, Miss Macklin," he said.