“Yes; it’s quite a ways off. I’ll have to go in myself and get a horse first, and then I’ll take you both in on that. I thought I’d go to Mrs. Wingate. Her husband runs the Eldorado Hotel, and she isn’t strong, and told me last time I was there she’d give a fancy salary if she could get a housekeeper. How’d you like to try that? It would be a first-class home for you and the baby.” Lucy had bent her face over the wet clothes. “Ain’t it all right here?” she said in a scarcely audible voice. “No,” said Moreau irritably; “I just told you there was danger of being snowed in after the first of November. You don’t want to be snowed in here with the baby, do you?” “I don’t care,” said Lucy. “If you don’t feel strong enough to do work like that,” he continued, “you can stay on in the hotel. I can make the dust for that easily. Then in the spring, when the streams are full, I’ll have enough to send you to Sacramento or San Francisco, and you can look about you and see how you’d like it there.” “Why can’t I stay here?” she said suddenly, her voice quavering, but full of protest. Its note thrilled Moreau. “I’ve just told you why,” he said quietly. “Well, I’m not afraid. I don’t mind snow. You can get things to eat from Hangtown. Oh, let me stay.” She turned toward him, still kneeling on the stone. Her face was quivering with the most violent emotions he had ever seen on it. The dead apathy was gone forever, at least as far as he was concerned. “Oh, let me stay,” she implored; “don’t send me away from you.” “Oh, Lucy,” he almost groaned, “don’t you see that won’t do?” “Let me stay,” she reiterated, and stretched out her hands toward him. The tears began to pour down her cheeks, and suddenly with the outstretched hands she seized him, and burst forth into a stream of impassioned words: “Let me stay. Let me be with you. Don’t send me away. There ain’t no use in anything if I’m not with you. Let me work for you. Let me be where I can see you--that’s all I want. I don’t want no money nor clothes. If you’ll just let me be near by! And I kin always work and cook, and you know you like things clean, and I kin keep ’em clean. Oh, you can’t mean to send me off. I ain’t never been happy before. I ain’t never had no one treat me so kind before. I ain’t never known what it was like to be treated decent. I can’t leave you--I can’t--I can’t--” She sank down at his feet in a quivering heap. Moreau raised her and held her in his arms, pressed against his breast, his cheek against her hair. He had no thought for the moment but an ecstasy of pity and joy. Clinging close to him, she reiterated between broken breaths: “I kin stay? Oh! I kin stay?” “Lucy,” he said, “how can you? Do you know what you’re asking?” “But I kin stay?” she repeated. She slid one arm round his neck, and he felt her wet cheek against his. “Let me just stay and work,” she whispered, “just where I can see you.” “Do you forget that you’re married?” he said huskily.