Tom Gerrard by Louis Becke

Kate was _not_ pleased to see Aulain, but did not show it; for she guessed why he had come, and could not but feel a little frightened. But after a little while she felt more at her ease, when he began to tell her father and herself of his mining experiences, and said laughingly that malarial fever was not half as bad as gold fever.

"You see," he said, turning to Kate, "the one only takes possession of your body: the other takes your soul as well. The more gold you get, the more you want; and one does not feel that he has a corporeal existence at all when he turns up a fifty or sixty ounce nugget--as I did on three or four occasions. You feel as if you belonged to another--a more glorious world; and before you, you see the open, shining gates of the bright City of Fortune."