The Hunted Woman

by James Oliver Curwood

For a moment Joanne stood facing the little lake, and when she spoke again there was a note of thankfulness, of subdued joy and triumph, in her voice.

"Before that day had ended I had displeased Mortimer FitzHugh," she said, and Aldous saw the fingers of her hands close tightly. "I told him that until a month had passed I would not live with him as a wife lives with her husband. And he was displeased. And my father was not yet buried! I was shocked. My soul revolted.

"We went to London and I was made welcome in the older FitzHugh's wifeless home, and the papers told of our wedding. And two days later there came from Devonshire a woman—a sweet-faced little woman with sick, haunted eyes; in her arms she brought a baby; and that baby was Mortimer FitzHugh's!

"We confronted him—the mother, the baby, and I; and then I knew that he was a fiend. And the father was a fiend. They offered to buy the woman off, to support her and the child. They told me that many English gentlemen had made mistakes like this, and that it was nothing—that it was quite common. Mortimer FitzHugh had never touched me with his lips, and now, when he came to touch me with his hands, I struck him. It was a serpent's house, and I left it.

"My father had left me a comfortable fortune, and I went into a house of my own. Day after day they came to me, and I knew that they feared I was going to secure a divorce. During the six months that followed I learned other things about the man who was legally my husband. He was everything that was vile. Brazenly he went into public places with women of dishonour, and I hid my face in shame.

"His father died, and for a time Mortimer FitzHugh became one of the talked-about spendthrifts of London. Swiftly he gambled and dissipated himself into comparative poverty. And now, learning that I would not get a divorce, he began to regard me as a slave in chains. I remember, one time, that he succeeded in laying his hands on me, and they were like the touch of things that were slimy and poisonous. He laughed at my revulsion. He demanded money of me, and to keep him away from me I gave it to him. Again and again he came for money; I suffered as I cannot tell you, but never once in my misery did I weaken in my promise to my father and to myself. But—at last—I ran away.

"I went to Egypt, and then to India. A year later I learned that Mortimer FitzHugh had gone to America, and I returned to London. For two years I heard nothing of him; but day and night I lived in fear and dread. And then came the news that he had died, as you read in the newspaper clipping. I was free! For a year I believed that; and then, like a shock that had come to destroy me, I was told that he was not dead but that he was alive, and in a place called Tête Jaune Cache, in British Columbia. I could not live in the terrible suspense that followed. I determined to find out for myself if he was alive or dead. And so I came, John Aldous. And he is dead. He is down there—dead. And I am glad that he is dead!"

"And if he was not dead," said Aldous quietly, "I would kill him!"

He could find nothing more to say than that. He dared trust himself no further, and in silence he held out his hands, and for a moment Joanne gave him her own. Then she withdrew them, and with a little gesture, and the smile which he loved to see trembling about her mouth, she said:

"Donald will think this is scandalous. We must go back and apologize!"