The Secret of the Reef

Book Excerpt: ...spending some weeks with pleasant people, it's not nice to know they must all scatter and that you have to part from friends you have made and like."A faint tinge of color crept into Ruth's face; but she smiled."It doesn't follow that they're forgotten," she replied; "and there's always a possibility of their meeting again. We may see you at Tacoma; it isn't very far from Vancouver."Jimmy was not a presumptuous man, but he saw that she had given him a lead and he bitterly regretted that he could not follow it. Though of hopeful temperament, stern experience had taught him sense, and he recognized that circumstances did not permit of his dallying with romance. There was nothing to be gained and something to be lost by cultivating the girl's acquaintance."I may have to sail on a different run before long," he said. She gave him a glance of swift but careful scrutiny. The moonlight was clear, and he looked well in his white uniform, which showed his solid but finely molded...