He got up, threw another stick of
wood on the fire and sat before the leaping blaze, curiously
disturbed but not by the dream. Somehow he was again in doubt--was
he going to stick it out in the mountains after all, and if he
should, was not the reason, deep down in his soul, the foolish
hope that June would come back again. No, he thought, searching
himself fiercely, that was not the reason. He honestly did not
know what his duty to her was--what even was his inmost wish, and
almost with a groan he paced the floor to and fro. Meantime the
storm raged. A tree crashed on the mountainside and the lightning
that smote it winked into the cabin so like a mocking, malignant
eye that he stopped in his tracks, threw open the door and stepped
outside as though to face an enemy. The storm was majestic and his
soul went into the mighty conflict of earth and air, whose
beginning and end were in eternity. The very mountain tops were
rimmed with zigzag fire, which shot upward, splitting a sky that
was as black as a nether world, and under it the great trees
swayed like willows under rolling clouds of gray rain. One fiery
streak lit up for an instant the big Pine and seemed to dart
straight down upon its proud, tossing crest.
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