"Well, I like your nerve! You come back drunk just when the community had begun to forget you, and wander into the last house in the world where you ought to show yourself. Your being drunk doesn't excuse you. Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" Jack smiled ironically. "Suppose you climb off your high horse for a little bit. If I have to get a permit from my only brother to come back to the town where I was born, things have come to a nice pass. Better cut all that out." "You're certainly a past-master at making a mess of things," William continued. "Your coming back that way fits neatly into your departure. You needn't think people have forgotten that you ran off with another man's wife. And your coming back right now, just when the Montgomerys had buried the hatchet, was calculated with the Devil's own mind." "So that's the tune, is it?" said Jack, stretching his arms upon the table and clasping his fingers to subdue their nervous twitchings. "That's just the tune! This town isn't big enough to hold you and the rest of us. You've cost me a lot of money first and last. You made it necessary for us to pull away from Amzi and start all over again, and there was a prejudice against me from the start that I've just about lived down." Jack grinned unpleasantly. "Oh, the bank hasn't been terribly prosperous, then!" William blinked at the thrust. He had given the conversation an unfortunate turn, and he sought uncomfortably for another line of attack. Jack unwittingly opened the way for him. "You were the good boy of the family and used to be a pillar in the church. I have a distinct though melancholy impression that when I took myself hence you were passing the basket in Center Church every Sunday morning. I don't recall that I ever _saw_ you do it, but it was a matter of common knowledge in this town, Will, that you did that very thing. And being a Christian, just how do you square your effusive brotherly welcome with the gospel? The only reason God makes sinners is to give 'em a chance to repent. Without repentance what do you suppose would become of your churches anyhow?" "I don't see any repentance in you; and I want to know right now what you've done with that woman?" Jack blinked, then smiled and gave a laugh expressive of disdain and contempt. "If you please, which woman?" William's frown deepened. The one woman was certainly enough, and his rage was increased by the leer that accompanied the question. "Oh, I dare say there have been enough of them! I mean the one you took away from here; I mean Lois Kirkwood."