“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.