CHAPTER XIV.
Toute passion a son chemin de croix.
And Michael?
What of him during these two endless years?
What did he think about during his first year in prison: what was the first waking in his cell like, the second, the third, the gradual discovery of what it means to be in prison?
Was there a bird outside his window to wound him?
The oncome of summer, the first thrill of autumn, how did he bear them?
His was not a mind that had ever dwelt for long upon itself.

The egoist's torturing gift of introspection and self-analysis was not his.
He had never pricked himself with that poisoned arrow.

So far he had not thought it of great importance what befell him.

Did he think so now?
Did he brood over his adverse fate?
Did he rebel against it, or did he accept it?
Did angels of despair and anguish wrestle with him through the hot nights until the dawn?
Did his famishing youth rise up against him?
Or did that most blessed of all temperaments, the impersonal one, minister to him in his great need?
Perhaps at first he was supported by the thought that he was suffering voluntarily for Fay's sake.

Perhaps during the first year he kept hold of the remembrance of her love for him.