It made social
conventions of no value, and narrowed the question of morality to the
relationship of these three human souls.
Lying there in the dark, with the elemental war of wind and snow filling
the illimitable arch of sky, he came to feel, in a dim, wordless way,
that this tragedy was born of conventions largely. Also, it appeared
infinitesimal, like the activities of insects battling, breeding, dying.
He came also to feel that the force which moved these animalculae was
akin to the ungovernable sweep of the wind and snow--all inexplicable,
elemental, unmoral.
His thought came always back to the man kneeling there, and the clasp of
the woman's hands--that baffled him, subdued him.
When he awoke it was light. The roar of the wind continued, but faint,
far away, like the humming of a wire with the cold. He lay bewildered,
half dreaming, not knowing what it was that had impressed him with this
unwonted feeling of doubt and weariness. At last he heard a movement in
the room and rose on his elbow. Rivers was awake and was peering out at
the window.
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