“Let me just stay and work,” she whispered, “just where I can see you.”
“Do you forget that you’re married?” he said huskily.
“I’ll not be in your way. I’ll not ask for anything or be any trouble,” was her whispered answer, “so long’s you let me be near you.”
They walked back to the cabin silently. Lucy knew that she had gained her point and would stay. Her childish nature invaded and possessed by a great passion built on gratitude and reverence, asked no more than to be allowed to work for and worship the man who was to her a god. She did not look into the future, nor demand its secrets. The perfect joy of the present filled her. In the days that followed she grew in beauty, and in some subtile way acquired a new girlishness. Her past seemed wiped out. The blighting effects of the four previous years fell away from her and she seemed to revert to the sweet and simple youthfulness that had been hers when Jake Shackleton had married her at St. Louis. Silent and gentle as ever, it was plain to be seen that whatever Moreau asked for—service, friendship, love—she would unquestioningly give.
Early in November a cold evening came with a red sunset and a sharpening of every outline. For the first time they were driven into the cabin for supper. A fire of boughs and dried cones burned in the chimney and before this, supper being over, they sat, Lucy in the rocker made of a barrel, Moreau on the end of an upturned box, staring at the flames.
Finally the man broke the silence by telling her that he was going to take his dust and walk into Hangtown the next day, remaining there over night and returning in the morning with fresh supplies and a burro.
“Lucy,” he said, drawing his box nearer to her, “I want to talk to you of something.”
She looked up, saw that the moment both had been dreading had come, and paled.
“Lucy, the winter’s coming. The snow may be here now at any moment. Have you thought of what we’re to do?”
She shook her head and began to tremble. His words called up the specter of separation—what she feared most in the world.