Lost

"Don't touch her!" said the other, fiercely. "Let her alone, you drunken
fool!"

"Now, look here, Mr. Bressant," rejoined Bill Reynolds, resting his
hands on his knees, and looking intently in Bressant's face, "I may not
be rich and a swell, like you are; but I guess I'm an honest man, any
way, as much as ever you be; and I ain't insulting nobody by helping
take home a poor frozen girl. I don't care if she is engaged to you. You
don't mean to keep her here till morning do you? and seeing she ain't
married yet, I guess the right place for her to be in, is her father's
house."

Perhaps it was the moonlight, glinting on Bill's immovable eye-glasses,
that gave extraordinary impressiveness to his words; or it may have been
Bressant's reflection, that this young country bumpkin, sullied with
drink, coarse and ignorant though he was, would have probably found his
sense of equality in no way diminished, had he known more of the facts
to which the present catastrophe was a sequel; at all events, he made no
further objections. His manner changed to an almost submissive
humbleness, and, without more words, he helped Bill to place the
insensible woman in the sleigh.

"That's the talk," remarked Mr. Reynolds, as he drew the sleigh-robe
over her. "Now, then, Mr. Bressant, just you jump in and hold on to her,
and I'll lead the horse along. We'll be there in half a shake."

"No," replied Bressant, after a mental conflict as violent as it was
brief; "I'll lead the horse myself." The only pleasure now left to this
young man was to insult and torture himself to the utmost of his
ingenuity. He had forfeited all right to protect or care for Sophie, and
it was with a savage satisfaction that he resigned it to Bill Reynolds,
as being the worthier and better man. It was the quixoticism of
self-degradation, but was doubtless not without some wholesome
influence.