“Ruth,” he said very quietly, and in the tone of his voice there was a nervous tremor. “You made me very happy that night I left you in Halifax.” He paused as if expecting a sympathetic response, but none came. Ruth felt her heart pounding as if it would choke her. He continued slowly and in the same nervous low tone. “You know, girlie”—she winced at the term—“I loved you ever since we first met four years ago, and—and since that night in Halifax I’ve been thinking of you night and day.” He wanted to say a great deal more but words failed. He drew a deep breath, and gazing intently at her slowly paling face, he said simply, “Ruth, darling, I love you. Will you marry me?”
The moment had come! Ruth made an effort to regain her composure. Not daring to look at his face, she slowly withdrew her hand from his and replied in a faint whisper, which seemed, to her strained imagination, to echo inside of her, “I—I can’t!”
Donald gave a slight start. Her shoulder was against his and she felt it. It seemed to have temporarily bereft him of speech. After a pause, which to Ruth seemed an eternity, he asked quietly, “Why, Ruth?”
She lost her composure for a moment and felt like crying, but regaining her self-control, answered in the same barely audible voice, “I’m already engaged.”
“Engaged? To whom?” The quiet question held a note of intense surprise. Astounded, uncomprehending, McKenzie stared at her averted face in a daze.
She almost choked as she replied, “To Walter!”
It seemed an age before he spoke again, but when he did the tremor was more noticeable, though there was no anger in the tone, but instead, a note of astonishment. “Why, Ruth, how can that be? Don’t you love me?”
Still looking away from him; not daring to look at his face, she shook her head and murmured, “No, Donald!”
“I don’t believe it!” His words came quick and there was no tremor in his voice. Catching her hand again, he gripped it in his strong fingers, and repeated. “I don’t believe it!” Then with appeal in his tones, he added, “Look into my eyes, Ruth, and tell me that! I don’t—I can’t—believe it ... after that night!”
Her resolution was wavering, but cold reason was saying insistently, “If you give way now you’ll surrender to him. You’ll be a fisherman’s wife. You’ll live in a cottage and keep a home for a man who’ll be with you but seldom. You’ll lie awake nights worrying about him. You’ll not be able to enjoy the things you desire and admire. You may love ... but love flies out of the window when poverty comes in at the door. Your culture, your education will be thrown away, and some day, maybe, you’ll be standing in your cottage door with a child in your arms and there’ll be a vessel coming in with a half-masted flag ... and some man will be saying to you, ‘Aye, your husband was lost at sea!’” She shuddered at the thought and steeled her heart. She would not look into his eyes. If she did so, she would waver, she knew. She cared for him more than she thought, and her heart was breaking.