His spirit was sullen and hard, his heart closed against repentance.

Had not the Church and Pontiac and the world punished him beyond his deserts for a moment's madness brought on by a great shock! One bright, sunshiny day of early winter, he trudged through the snow-banked street of Pontiac back to his home.

Men he once knew well, and had worked with, passed him in a sled on their way to the great shanty in the backwoods.

They halted in their singing for a moment when they saw him; then, turning their heads from him, dashed off, carolling lustily: "Ah, ah, Babette, We go away; But we will come Again, Babette, Again back home, On Easter Day, Back home to play On Easter Day, Babette! Babette!" "Babette! Babette!" The words followed him, ringing in his ears long after the men had become a mere fading point in the white horizon behind him.
This was not the same world that he had known, not the same Pontiac.
Suddenly he stopped short in the road.
"Curse them! Curse them! Curse them all!" he cried in a cracked, strange voice.

A woman hurrying across the street heard him, and went the faster, shutting her ears.