Vickers, who had just sunk into a chair, appreciating that the conversation was likely to be a long one, sprang up. Did she then know his story? Had she recognized him from the first? He made no effort to conceal that her threat alarmed him. “Arrested for what?” he asked. “For stealing everything that I had in the world, Bob,” she returned almost conversationally. Chapter IV It was a long time since Vickers had spent a sleepless night--a night, that is, on which he had designed to slumber,--but now, in the little mahogany bed something too short for him, he tossed all night. Contempt was a sentiment he was not accustomed to inspiring, and it sat very ill upon him. Fear, dislike, and even distrust he had had occasion to deal with, but contempt he had never, to his knowledge, had to brook. His good looks and his ready tongue had gained him an easy sort of admiration from women. His great bodily strength had enabled him to insist on a certain civility even from his enemies. Indeed, he had an almost childish belief in the efficacy of physical force. He had been born and bred in a country town in the northern part of the State of New York, near where his father and his grandfather had been gentlemen farmers. He had gained, too early, a reputation in the neighborhood, as a good sport, and the best amateur boxer in the countryside. He had, besides, a certain social prestige, for his father’s family had once been very rich and very much respected. A new town, a lake, a street, all bore the name of Vickers; and, though this had been over for a generation, some legend of greatness still lingered about the name. It was all the worst possible training for a man of his temperament. His father sent him off--a little too late--to study scientific agriculture at a neighboring university. After three years Vickers was expelled owing to some trouble over a boxing-match. This was the beginning of his quarrel with his father, who could not stand seeing the name of Vickers in the newspapers--particularly in connection with what he preferred to call prize-fighting. The two men had struggled on together in spite of constant disagreements, until Vickers’s final catastrophe had put an end to the situation. His father did not support him even in this, and Vickers had not been surprised to hear that when the older man died, a few years later, he had left his little property to a niece and nephew. Lewis Vickers had left his native town by night--a fugitive, and yet a certain glory had still attached to him. He had none of the bitterness to look back to that slights and small insults bring to a man. Never in all his life had he been spoken to and looked at as Nellie had looked at him and spoken to him the evening before. His blood was poisoned at the recollection. It was an insult he could not wipe out--an insult, moreover, delivered by a woman,--a creature he had been in the habit of subduing with a glance.