With the acquisition of wealth the sullen manner of the boatman changed to the arrogant and insolent attitude of the man of riches and power. Yet the riches did not bring him happiness or comfort, and the power he did not know how to use.
In his hopeless passion for Marie he became at times so violent as to lose the friendship of Pierre, and to sever his connection altogether with Bluff Castle and its inmates.
After the novelty of the feeling that he was a rich man had worn off, his mind turned back to the two subjects which took all his attention, and which were never forgotten, the awful expectation of the water curse, and his love for the Acadian's daughter.
The entrance of Marie into the life of Len Lawson had increased the effect the fear of the curse had upon him. While he had lived for himself alone, before he fully realized what his affection for the beautiful girl meant to him, he was not so haunted by the thing as when he came to years of thought and manhood. He looked upon it now as an obstacle to the greatest desire of his life, and he believed that but for it he would be in a much stronger position in regard to Marie. It dwelt with him every day of his life. Since the changes of the last few weeks he brooded upon it to the exclusion of everything else; while with the intensity of his feelings his jealous hatred and vindictive anger were increased as well. His very independence induced the later development of his mixed emotions. He had known of the strange curse set upon his name, and from boyhood had become familiar with it. He had seen the effect of it upon his father. He had been led to believe it might also be his fate to come under its bane when he had reached maturity. Familiarity had lessened the horror of it while it affected him only. But now that it was affecting others, and in a way that most seriously concerned the future of his life, he looked upon it in a different way. He saw in it more than a curse on his life. He knew it to be the death of his greatest hope, and equal to death itself.
This later feeling came when he had been admitted to a more intimate relationship with the Gotros, and had come to look upon Marie as the passion of his life. He had known her from childhood, and after his manhood had come to him he had begun to appreciate the difficulty of the position he held as a would-be lover. Yet the more this difficulty became apparent, the more ardor it gave his passion. What the last developments had done for him as well as for Marie we have already seen. By his own efforts to better his cause he cut himself off altogether from privileges which he had previously enjoyed.