After that
it became clear and cold again, until enough moisture had gathered
to blanket the earth from the cold of outer space. That was all.
Nothing happened. No storms, no churning waters and threshing
forests, nothing but the machine-like precipitation of accumulated
moisture. Possibly the most notable thing that occurred through
the weary weeks was the gliding of the temperature up to the
unprecedented height of fifteen below. To atone for this, outer
space smote the earth with its cold till the mercury froze and the
spirit thermometer remained more than seventy below for a
fortnight, when it burst. There was no telling how much colder it
was after that. Another occurrence, monotonous in its regularity,
was the lengthening of the nights, till day became a mere blink of
light between the darkness.
Neil Bonner was a social animal. The very follies for which he was
doing penance had been bred of his excessive sociability. And
here, in the fourth year of his exile, he found himself in company-
-which were to travesty the word--with a morose and speechless
creature in whose sombre eyes smouldered a hatred as bitter as it
was unwarranted. And Bonner, to whom speech and fellowship were as
the breath of life, went about as a ghost might go, tantalized by
the gregarious revelries of some former life.
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