O’Melaghlin determined to join that expedition.
His young wife, Moira, was much too delicate just at this time to accompany him.
He left her at the hotel with nearly all the little money he had to bear her expenses during his absence, which he promised should be as short as possible.
He said he would come back to see her about the time she might be able to return with him.
Then he went away, and Moira remained at the hotel.
It seemed a cruel act so to leave a young wife, who was expecting within four or five weeks to become a mother; but The O’Melaghlin had the gold fever in its most malignant form, and had even infected her with the fell disease.
She also had feverish and delirious hallucinations concerning the imaginary golden days that were dawning upon them, of which, indeed, her present elegant and luxurious surroundings in this palace hotel seemed a prophecy and a foretaste. Never in her life had Moira seen, dreamed or imagined such magnificence as this public house presented to her. And to make such a superb style of living their own for life was worth some present sacrifice of each other’s society for a little while. So she willingly let her husband depart with the gold-seekers, and whenever she felt very lonesome without him she just shut her eyes and called up the inward vision of the gorgeous future.
Yet there were moods in which she grew too deeply impressed to look beyond the immediate, impending trial, bringing certain pain and danger and possible death before giving her, if it should ever give her, the crown of a woman’s life—maternity.
She had made some few pleasant acquaintances among the ladies who were boarding at the hotel, and who were charmed by the artless and confiding manners of this beautiful wild Irish girl—or child-woman. And when they discovered her fears they laughed her into courage again, telling her that such dark forebodings as hers were quite an indispensable part of the program, and every mother among them all had been through it. And they spoke the truth, as every doctor knows.
But this hotel was a house patronized by travelers and transient boarders only.