How had he deserved it?
He had sown the storm, it was but just that he should reap the whirlwind; he had scattered thistles, could he expect to gather grapes?
He knew that the sympathy of all his father's house was not with him, but with the woman he had wronged.

He was glad it was so.

Looking back now, it seemed so poor and paltry a thing that he, a man, should stoop to revenge himself upon those who had given him birth, as a kind of insult to the woman who had lightly set him aside, and should use for that purpose a helpless, confiding girl.

To revenge one's self for wrong to one's self is but a common passion, which has little dignity; to avenge some one whom one has loved, man or woman,--and, before all, woman,--has some touch of nobility, is redeemed by loyalty.

For his act there was not one word of defence to be made, and he was not prepared to make it.
The cigars and liquors were beside him, but he did not touch them.