t there in the dark,
watching their silhouettes and listening to their voices, there would be
such a hue and cry as the lake had not heard since the Indians sighted
Champlain on its banks.

It was this reflection that first of all stirred the current of his deep,
slow resentment. During the fifteen months since his arrest he had been
either too busy, or too anxious, or too sorely puzzled at finding himself
in so odd a position, to have leisure for positive anger. At the worst of
times he had never lost the belief that the world, or that portion of the
world which concerned itself with him, would come to recognize the fact
that it was making a mistake. He had taken his imprisonment and his trial
more or less as exciting adventures. Even the words of his sentence lost
most of their awfulness in his inner conviction that they were empty
sounds. Of the confused happenings on the night of his escape his clearest
memory was that he had been hungry, while he thought of the weeks spent in
the cabin as a "picnic." Just as good spirits had seldom failed him, so
patience had rarely deserted him. Such ups and downs of emotion as he had
experienced resulted in the long run in an increase of optimism. In the
back of his slow mind he kept the expectation, almost the intention, of
giving his anger play--some time; but only when his rights should have
been restored to him.

But he felt it coming on him now, before he was prepared for it. It was
taking him unawares, and without due cause, roused by the chance
perception that he was cut off from rightful, natural companionship.
Nothing as yet had brought home to him the meaning of his situation like
the talk and laughter of these lads and girls, who suddenly became to him
what Lazarus in Abraham's bosom was to Dives in his torment.

A few dips of the paddle took him out of sight and sound of the hotel; but
the dull, indignant passion remained in his heart, finding outward vent in
the violence with which he sent the canoe bounding northward beneath the
starlight. For the moment it was a blind, objectless passion, directed
against nothing and no one in particular. He was not skilled in the
analysis of feeling, or in tracing effect to cause. For an hour or two his
wrath was the rage of the infuriated animal roaring out its pain,
regardless of the hand that has inflicted it. Other rowing-parties came
within hearing distance, but he paid them no attention; lake steamers hove
in sight, but he