d motionless air, "It 's this horrible day!"

Rowland that afternoon tried to write a letter to his cousin Cecilia,
but his head and his heart were alike heavy, and he traced upon the
paper but a single line. "I believe there is such a thing as being too
reasonable. But when once the habit is formed, what is one to do?" He
had occasion to use his keys and he felt for them in his pocket; they
were missing, and he remembered that he had left them lying on the
hill-top where he had had his talk with Roderick. He went forth in
search of them and found them where he had thrown them. He flung
himself down in the same place again; he felt indisposed to walk. He
was conscious that his mood had vastly changed since the morning;
his extraordinary, acute sense of his rights had been replaced by the
familiar, chronic sense of his duties. Only, his duties now seemed
impracticable; he turned over and buried his face in his arms. He lay
so a long time, thinking of many things; the sum of them all was that
Roderick had beaten him. At last he was startled by an extraordinary
sound; it took him a moment to perceive that it was a portentous growl
of thunder. He roused himself and saw that the whole face of the sky had
altered. The clouds that had hung motionless all day were moving from
their stations, and getting into position, as it were, for a battle. The
wind was rising; the sallow vapors were turning dark and consolidating
their masses. It was a striking spectacle, but Rowland judged best to
observe it briefly, as a storm was evidently imminent. He took his way
down to the inn and found Singleton still at his post, profiting by the
last of the rapidly-failing light to finish his study, and yet at the
same time taking rapid notes of the actual condition of the clouds.

"We are going to have a most interesting storm," the little painter
gleefully cried. "I should like awfully to do it."

Rowland adjured him to pack up his tools and decamp, and repaired to
the house. The air by this time had become portentously dark, and the
thunder was incessant and tremendous; in the midst of it the lightning
flashed and vanished, like the treble shrilling upon the bass. The
innkeeper and his servants had crowded to the doorway, and were looking
at the scene with faces which seemed a proof that it was unprecedented.
As Rowland approached, the group divided, to let some one pass from
within, and Mrs. Hudson came forth, as white as a corpse and trembli