"Well, say, I guess she'd better be fetched home, first thing," said he, bestirring himself to arise from the chilly seat he had taken. "Lucky I happened along, too. Guess you was hoping I might, wasn't you? Well, you hoist her under the arms, and I'll hang on by the feet--ain't that it? and we'll have her into the sleigh in no time." "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.