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 stor