Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/312

298 Laboriously he revealed the musician's plan. After the first shock, the leap of her unbreathed ambition, she listened motionless, pale, large-eyed, as in a dream.

"So, ye see, the cargo's Nova Scoshy coal for Noobryport. You 'll sail that fur with me, and take the cars from there." He touched the book in her lap. "Now we 've adopted each other, I can pay the fust year or so."

Joyce started again.

"How?" she asked, with vague misgiving.

"Oh, I 'll git the money, dear," he answered, gay and elusive.

"But how?" she insisted.

"Why, I can sell the vessel handy, up in those parts, at a profit, too."

Easy, tremendous, untimely, the sacrifice overbore her: as when a friend, laughing, flushed, his cheer cut short, falls beside his friend in the moment of victory. Here, like a broken trifle, her old hero cast away his final dream and happiness.

"Oh, captain," she cried, choking, between tears and feeble laughter. "Oh, you—I