The adjective slipped from his mind before he was aware of it. He
turned with an involuntary start and looked about him. He knew perfectly
well what it meant--this thought that had thrust its head up from the
instinctive region. He understood, without being able to express it
fully, the meaning that betrayed itself in the choice of the adjective.
For if he had ignored the existence of this conflict he would at the
same time, have remained outside the arena. Whereas now he had entered
the lists. Now this battle for his soul must have issue. And he knew
that the spell of Nature was greater for him than all other spells in
the world combined--greater than love, revelry, pleasure, greater even
than study. He had always been afraid to let himself go. His pagan soul
dreaded her terrific powers of witchery even while he worshipped.

The little village already slept. The world lay smothered in snow. The
chalet roofs shone white beneath the moon, and pitch-black shadows
gathered against the walls of the church. His eye rested a moment on the
square stone tower with its frosted cross that pointed to the sky: then
travelled with a leap of many thousand feet to the enormous mountains
that brushed the brilliant stars. Like a forest rose the huge peaks
above the slumbering village, measuring the night and heavens. They
beckoned him. And something born of the snowy desolation, born of the
midnight and the silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows of
the night, something that lay 'twixt terror and wonder, dropped from the
vast wintry spaces down into his heart--and called him. Very softly,
unrecorded in any word or thought his brain could compass, it laid its
spell upon him. Fingers of snow brushed the surface of his heart. The
power and quiet majesty of the winter's night appalled him....

Fumbling a moment with the big unwieldy key, he let himself in and went