Bressant

Meanwhile, Mr. Reynolds had been luxuriating in a very unmistakable

sense of injury. To some persons there are a positive relief and

gratification in being really wronged: it raises their estimate of their

own importance: by virtue of their title to feel angry, disappointed, or

deceived, they can take their place in a higher than their ordinary

rank. So Mr. Reynolds, finding himself qualified to plead a clear case

of absolute and unwarrantable desertion, held up his head, and bore

himself with becoming dignity.

His dignity did not, however, interfere with his seeking to drown his

slight in the good, old-fashioned way. He solaced himself beyond

prudence with the varied products of the hotel bar, and then settled

himself solitary in his sleigh and jingled homeward. His road took him

past the Parsonage, and he enlivened the lonely way by scraps of songs,

reflections upon the perfidy of women, and portentous yawns at intervals

of two or three minutes. In fact, by the time he had gone a mile the

most predominant sensation he had was sleepiness, and half a mile more

came very near making a second Endymion of him. From this, however, he

was preserved by the very sudden stoppage of his sleigh, which threw him

on his knees against the dasher, and forcibly knocked his eyes open. He

rolled over to the ground, but, happening to light on his feet, he stood

unsteadily erect, and asked a very tall and powerful man, who was

holding his horse's head, when he was going to let that drop?

Receiving no intelligible answer, he stumbled in the powerful man's

direction, perhaps contemplating the performance of some deed of

desperate valor. Meanwhile the object of his hostility had relinquished

his hold of the horse, and appeared kneeling on the ground, supporting

the form of a woman, dressed in a tasteful white dress, with dark,

disordered hair lying around her colorless face.