He found himself shivering. Across the wild wastes of the moors he heard a moan, like the moan of some despairing monster. He knew it was only the wind, but to him there was a kind of personality behind it. The great spirit of the moors was breathing across the broad expanse, just as he had heard the spirit of the desert breathe across the great wastes of sand.
A few minutes later he heard the distant rumbling of thunder, and although it was yet day, it became almost as dark as a winter evening. The thunder came nearer, and then he saw a flash of lightning. He still trudged on. The weather did not matter. The storm in his heart drove away all thoughts of the storm that was coming upon him.
Again the thunder rolled. This time it was nearer, while the flashes of lightning were more vivid. The rain began to fall too, not rapidly, but large, heavy drops splashed against his face.
"No, I can't give up the scheme of years," he cried. "I won't be the plaything of a passing fancy. She might have made a man of me; but instead she sent me into outer darkness. I might have been a good man if—if she had—but should I? Was my reformation anything but a passing mood? Might I not, if I had married her, dragged her down into the mire even as I have planned to do since? After all, I was but a straw in the wind. The moment she gave me up I flew to the drink and to the devil. What right had I, after all, to expect anything else?"
In spite of himself, he gave a start. It seemed as though right above his head the heavens were torn in twain, while the whole sky was lit up with blue vivid flashes of light. The rain fell in torrents.
"How relentless Nature is, after all!" he thought. "What can man do in face of such forces as those? Is God behind it all, I wonder? If so, what is the use of our working against Him? Let the breath of the Almighty touch a man, and he shrivels like the leaves in autumn. Unless he works in unison with Nature, Nature crushes him. Have I been trying to do battle against God all these years, I wonder?"
The rain continued to fall, but he still trudged on. He had a sort of savage delight in feeling the rain beat against him, in seeing the lightning's flash and hearing the thunder's roar.
"I was a blind fool," he cried. "I believed that I hated her, I believed I should hate her for ever. Yet, at the first touch of her lips on mine, I find myself as weak as a child, and still I can't give up my dreams of revenge. What playthings we are, after all!"
A moment later he was blinded, first by a flash of lightning, which he thought had struck him, and then by the rain, which came upon him in a deluge.
"I can't battle against this," he said; "it's impossible, yet there's no shelter anywhere." Through the blinding storm he saw a huge rock. At least that would shelter him somewhat, and with difficulty he made his way towards it. From there he could watch the tornado of the elements.