“And yet you must have been determined to get the gold, since all you had to face didn’t daunt you.”
“Yes,” said Jimmy with a steady look, “I wanted it badly, for a purpose.”
“Didn’t you want it for itself? That would have been a very natural thing.” Ruth hesitated. “But you haven’t mentioned your real reason.”
He gathered courage from the glance she gave him, though the next moment she turned her head.
“I’m half afraid, but it must be told. I was a steamboat mate without a ship, a laborer about the wharves and mills, and all the time I had a mad ambition locked up in my heart. Then my partner, Bethune, showed me a chance of realizing it, and I took that chance.”
“It must have been a strong ambition that sent you up to fight with the gales and ice.”
“It was. In fact, it was stronger than my judgment. I knew it was a forlorn hope, but I couldn’t give it up. You see, I had fallen in love with a girl.”
“Ah! I wonder when that happened? Was it one night when you met the Sound steamer with your launch?”
“Oh, no; long before that. It began one afternoon at Yokohama, when a girl in a dust-veil and the prettiest dress I’d ever seen came up the Empress’s gangway.”
“Then it must have been very sudden,” Ruth answered with a blush and a smile. “The veil was rather thick, and she didn’t speak to you.”