He started at right angles, pushed into the maze of white-robed
spruce and balsam, and turned back in the direction of the cabin over a
new trail. He was not in a good humour. There possessed him an ingrowing
and acute feeling of animosity toward himself. Since the day--or
night--fate had drawn that great, black curtain over his life, shutting
out his sun, he had been drifting; he had been floating along on
currents of the least resistance, making no fight, and, in the
completeness of his grief and despair, allowing himself to disintegrate
physically as well as mentally. He had sorrowed with himself; he had
told himself that everything worth having was gone; but now, for the
first time, he cursed himself. To-day--these few hundred yards out in
the snow--had come as a test. They had proved his weakness. He had
degenerated into less than a man! He was....
He clenched his hands inside his thick mittens, and a rage burned within
him like a fire. Go with Father Roland? Go up into that world where he
knew that the one great law of life was the survival of the fittest?
Yes, he _would go_! This body and brain of his needed their
punishment--and they should have it! He would go. And his body would
fight for it, or die.
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