The Wrong Woman Read Free Page A

wider, she at last found herself inspecting her own footsteps and
following her own wandering path; and here she gave it up utterly. She knew she
was lost.
    Again she peered out at a point in space and wondered if that was the
place she came from. How different the distance looked now from what it did when
she saw it down that endless road. That, at least, gave some shape to the
future; and though she had been in doubt as to what it might be like, she at
least knew it was there. Now the future was all around her. A thousand futures
now confronted herall done up alike in blue and awaiting her chance move, this
direction or that; whereby she may be said to have been confronted with the
world as it isa veritable old wheel of fortune. But she had to do something;
and the only thing to do was to walk. Making up her mind to the Somewhere in
front of her, she simply went ahead; for the afternoon was going and the night
was sure to comea prospect that filled her with dread.
    It is no wonder that Lot's wife looked back when she was well out on the
plain. Probably she wanted to see where she was goingso Janet thought, as she
trudged wearily along. Or possibly the poor woman wanted to make sure that she
was going at all ; for when you are walking always at the middle of
things, and not coming to anything, there is no progress. Janet thoughtfor she
had to think somethingthat she knew just how stationary Lot's wife felt when
she was turned into a pillar of salt. Possibly, if the truth were known, Lot's
wife desired to be turned into a pillar of saltwho can tell? Janet, walking
along so unrelated and ineffectual, rather fancied that she herself might want
to be turned into a salt-lick (she had passed one all worn hollow as the stone
of Mecca by the tongues of many Pilgrims); because if she were such a thing she
would not be so utterly useless and foolish under the eye of heaven. But still
she kept trudging along, feeling the growing weight of the slicker in her arms,
for Janet was not much of a hand to carry anything on her shoulder.
    Janet walked and walked, but her walking did not seem to have any effect upon
that endless land. The fence did not put in its appearance, neither did a house
nor a path, nor anything else which would make it different from the sky-covered
plain that it was. It persisted in being itself, world without end, amen. To
make matters worse, her shoe began to hurt (she had suspected it would and taken
the man's promise that it would n't), and the more she persevered the more it
clamped her toe and wrung her heel and drew fire to her instep. But there was
nothing to do but walk; and she kept on with her footsteps till the operation
became monotonous. Still that roadless scene was unmoved. The world was "round
like an apple"; that she could plainly see. And as to her feelings, this globe
was just a big treadmill under her aching feet.
    The only escape from such tyranny is to rise superior to it, withdrawing the
mind from its service; so she decided to think of something else. And now, as
she went on with no company but her own thoughts, she had a growing realization,
more and more vivid, of her fall from the horse and what the consequences might
have been. It was a miraculous escape, due to no management of hers. Suppose she
had been disabled!and in such a place! What a thought! She became frightened at
what was past. She had not really thought of it before; and now that she did,
her imagination was thrown wide open to the future, and she looked into the
possibilities ahead of her. A cow, she recalled, has been known to attack even a
horse and rider. And these wild range cattle; how might they take the presence
of a woman, never having seen one before? There were thousands of them wandering
about this big place, with horns that spread like the reach of a man's arms. Her
only recourse was to wish she were a man. This was a favorite wish of hers,
indulged in upon those