He was intent upon a situation that called for immediate handling. He tried to bring the scattered dim stars in this new firmament to focus. He might go to Nan and endeavor to minimize the effects of Lois's return, urging that if she wished to spend the rest of her life in Montgomery it was her affair, and had nothing whatever to do with her former husband or the woman he meant to marry. This was a sane, reasonable view of the situation; but its sanity and reasonableness were not likely to impress Nan Bartlett. Such an event as the sudden return of Lois would pass into local history as a great sensation. Jack Holton's re-appearance only a few weeks earlier had caused his fellow-townsmen to attack the old scandal with the avidity of a dog unearthing a neglected bone; and the return of the woman in the case could hardly fail to prove far more provocative of gossip. If Lois persisted in remaining in Montgomery, it was wholly unlikely that Nan would ever marry him; nor could he with any delicacy insist upon her doing so. They might marry and move to Indianapolis, thereby escaping the discomforts of the smaller town's criticism; and this was made possible by his brightening prospects. At any rate, it was only fair to go to Nan at once and lay the matter before her. Even now the news might have reached her; news spreads quickly in the world's compact Montgomerys. Phil aroused herself as she heard him fumbling for his coat at the hall-rack. She found a match and lighted the gas. "Going out, daddy?" she asked in something like her usual tone. He looked at her vaguely as he drew on his coat, as though trying to understand what she had said. "Well, you'll be back for supper. There'll be the usual holiday-cold-turkey supper, daddy." "Yes, Phil; I'll be back after while. I'm going for a tramp." But she knew that he had gone to see Nan. CHAPTER XVIII AMZI IS FLABBERGASTED Struby's drug-store did a large business in hot drinks in the week following Christmas, as citizens and citizenesses met to discuss the return of Lois Montgomery. The annual choir-row in Center Church caused scarcely a ripple; the county poorhouse burned to the ground, and nobody cared particularly; an august professor in the college was laid low with whooping-cough, and even this calamity failed to tickle the community as it would have done in ordinary circumstances.