God's Country—And the Woman

by James Oliver Curwood

"In a few minutes my mother and father will be here, Philip," she said. "The letter Jean brought me back there, where we first saw each other, came up by way of Wollaston House, and told me I need not expect them for a number of weeks. That was what made me happy for a little while. They were in Montreal, and I didn't want them to return. You will understand why—very soon. But my father changed his mind, and almost with the mailing of the letter he and my mother started home by way of Fond du Lac. Only an hour ago an Indian ran to us with the news that they were coming down the river. They are out there now—less than half a mile away—with Jean and the dogs!"

She turned a little from him, facing the bed.

"You remember—I told you that I had spent a year in Montreal," she went on. "I was there—alone—when it happened. See—"

She moved to the bed and gently drew the curtains aside. Scarcely breathing, Philip followed her.

"It's my baby," she whispered, "My little boy."

He could not see her face. She bowed her head and continued softly, as if fearing to awaken the baby asleep on the bed:

"No one knows—but Jean. My mother came first, and then my father. I lied to them. I told them that I was married, and that my husband had gone into the North. I came home with the baby—to meet this man I called Paul Darcambal, and whom they thought was my husband. I didn't want it to happen down there, but I planned on telling them the truth when we all got back in our forests. But after I returned I found that—I couldn't. Perhaps you may understand. Up here—among the forest people—the mother of a baby—like that—is looked upon as the most terrible thing in the world. She is called La bete noir—the black beast. Day by day I came to realize that I couldn't tell the truth, that I must live a great lie to save other hearts from being crushed as life has been crushed out of mine. I thought of telling them that my husband had died up here—in the North. And I was fearing suspicion ... the chance that my father might learn the untruth of it, when you came. That is all, Philip. You understand now. You know why—some day—you must go away and never come back. It is to save the boy, my father, my mother, and me!"

Not once in her terrible recital had the girl's voice broke. And now, as if bowing herself in silent prayer, she kneeled beside the bed and laid her head close to the baby's. Philip stood motionless, his unseeing eyes staring straight through the log walls and the black night to a city a thousand miles away. He understood now. Josephine's story was not the strangest thing in the world after all. It was perhaps the oldest of all stories. He had heard it a hundred times before, but never had it left him quite so cold and pulseless as he was now. And yet, even as the palace of the wonderful ideal he had builded crumbled about him in ruin, there rose up out of the dust of it a thing new-born and tangible for him. Slowly his eyes turned to the beautiful head bowed in its attitude of prayer. The blood began to surge back into his heart. His hands unclenched. She had told him that he would hate her, that he would want to leave her when he heard the story of her despair. And instead of that he wanted to kneel beside her now and take her close in his arms, and whisper to her that the sun had not set for them, but that it had only begun to rise.

And then, as he took a step toward her, there flashed through his brain like a disturbing warning the words with which she had told him that he would never know the real cause of her grief. "YOU MAY GUESS, BUT YOU WOULD NOT GUESS THE TRUTH IF YOU LIVED A THOUSAND YEARS." And could this that he had heard, and this that he looked upon be anything but the truth? Another step and he was at her side. For a moment all barriers were swept from between them. She did not resist him as he clasped her close to his breast. He kissed her upturned face again and again, and his voice kept whispering: "I love you, my Josephine—I love you—I love you—"

Suddenly there came to them sounds from out of the night. A door opened, and through the hall there came the great, rumbling voice of a man, half laughter, half shout; and then there were other voices, the slamming of the door, and THE voice again, this time in a roar that reached to the farthest walls of Adare House.