By an effort of will he turned his thought from this desire, or from
considering what the mysterious something could be that it was
all-important for him not to see, or who it was that in this desolate
place would spy upon him if he broke his vow.
When his activity had set the blood again coursing warmly in his veins,
all that was paltry and depressing passed from his mind and heart, as a
mist is rolled away by the wind. The sweet, wild air, that in those
regions is an elixir of life to the stranger, making him young if he be
old, and if he be young making him feel as demigods felt in days of
yore, for a day and a night had been doing its work upon him. Mere life
and motion became to him a delight such as he had never felt before; and
when the moon came out again from the other side of the cloud, the sight
of her beams upon surf and sand was like a rare wild joy. He was glad
that no one interfered with his pleasure, that he was, as far as he
knew, alone with the clouds that were winging their way among moonbeams
in the violet sky, and with the waves and the wind with which he held
companionship.
He had gone a mile, it might be more; he heard a step behind him. In
vain he tried to convince himself that some noise natural to the lonely
beach deceived him. In the high tide of life that the bracing air had
brought him, his senses were acute and true.
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