"
He stood waiting while the rising wind blew their garments about them. She
leaned against the wall of the house. "Won't you say good-by and tell me
you can forget my----"
She did not speak.
"No!" he cried, wildly. "Since you don't forget it! I have spoiled what
might have been a pleasant memory for you, and I know it. You were already
troubled, and I have added, and you won't forget it, nor shall I--nor
shall I! Don't say good-by--I can say it for both of us. God bless you--
and good-by, good-by, good-by!"
He crushed his hat down over his eyes and ran toward the orchard gate. For
a moment lightning flashed repeatedly; she saw him go out the gate and
disappear into sudden darkness. He ran through the field and came out on
the road. Heaven and earth were revealed again for a dazzling white
second. From horizon to horizon rolled clouds contorted like an
illimitable field of inverted haystacks, and beneath them enormous volumes
of pale vapor were tumbling in the west, advancing eastward with sinister
swiftness. She ran to a little knoll at the corner of the house and saw
him set his face to the storm. She cried aloud to him with all her
strength and would have followed, but the wind took the words out of her
mouth and drove her back cowering to the shelter of the house.
Out on the road the dust came lashing and stinging him like a thousand
nettles; it smothered him, and beat upon him so that he covered his face
with his sleeve and fought into the storm shoulder foremost, dimly glad of
its rage, scarcely conscious of it, keeping westward on his way to
nowhere.
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