At the first faint gleam of dawn in the sky, and as the distant stars paled and disappeared, the girl crept down the stairs with her bundle, her shoes in her hand, and went out by the kitchen door. She heard only the deep breathing of the old captain from across the sitting room and now and then the sobbing breath of Prudence, like the breathing of a hurt child that has fallen asleep in pain and half wakes to a realization of it. As she turned to close the outer door softly behind her, the girl's heart throbbed in response to the old woman's sorrow. While she sat on the bench to lace her shoes the cat, old Tabby, came rubbing and purring about her skirts. Muffled, as though from a great distance, a rooster vented a questioning crow as though he doubted that it was yet time to announce the birth of another day. She went to the barn to feed Queenie for the last time. That outraged old creature displayed her surprised countenance at the opening above her manger and blew sonorously through her nostrils. Perhaps the gray mare remembered how she had been aroused at a similar hour once before, and by Cap'n Ira himself. That experience must have been keen in the Queen of Sheba's memory if she had any memory at all. But the troubled girl gave the mare less attention than usual, throwing down some fodder and pouring a measure of corn into the manger. The mare turned to that with appetite. Corn came not amiss to Queenie, no matter at what hour it was vouchsafed her. Her sound old teeth did not stop crunching the kernels as Sheila went out of the barn. From the shed she secured an ax and a spade, as well as a basket. In spite of her condition of mind she knew exactly what she wanted to do--and she did it. Had she thought out her intention for months she could have gone about the matter no more directly and practically. Yet, had one stopped Sheila and asked her what she was about--exactly what her intentions were--the query would have found her unprepared with an answer. Both her physical and mental condition precluded Sheila from going far from the Ball homestead. What she had been through during these past few days had drained out of her physical vigor as well as all intellectual freshness. When Cap'n Ira Ball had led the feebly protesting Queen of Sheba across these empty fields to her intended sacrifice, the two had made no more dreary picture against the dim dawn than did Sheila now. She carried the bundle she had made slung over one shoulder by a length of rope. The spade, ax, and basket balanced her figure on the other side; she bent forward as she walked and, from a distance, Prudence 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.