“Miss Orr’s motive for thus benefiting a wretched community, well-nigh ruined years ago by the villainy of one man, should be held sacred from criticism,” he said, with heat.

“Well, let me tell you the girl had a motive—­or thought she had,” said the stranger unpleasantly.  “But she had no right to spend her money that way.  You spoke just now of the village as being ruined years ago by the villainy of one man.  That’s a lie!  The village ruined the man....  Never looked at it that way; did you?  Andrew Bolton had the interests of this place more deeply at heart than any other human being ever did.  He was the one public-spirited man in the place....  Do you know who built your church, young man?  I see you don’t.  Well, Andrew Bolton built it, with mighty little help from your whining, hypocritical church members.  Every Tom, Dick and Harry, for miles about; every old maid with a book to sell; every cause—­as they call the thousand and one pious schemes to line their own pockets—­every damned one of ’em came to Andrew Bolton for money, and he gave it to them.  He was no hoarding skinflint; not he.  Better for him if he had been.  When luck went against him, as it did at last, these precious villagers turned on him like a pack of wolves.  They killed his wife; stripped his one child of everything—­even to the bed she slept in; and the man himself they buried alive under a mountain of stone and iron, where he rotted for eighteen years!”

The stranger’s eyes were glaring with maniacal fury; he shook a tremulous yellow finger in the other’s face.

“Talk about ruin!” he shouted.  “Talk about one man’s villainy!  This damnable village deserves to be razed off the face of the earth! ...  But I meant to forgive them.  I was willing to call the score even.”

A nameless fear had gripped the younger man by the throat.

“Are you—?” he began; but could not speak the words.

“My name,” said the stranger, with astonishing composure, in view of his late fury, “is Andrew Bolton; and the girl you have been praising and—­courting—­is my daughter.  Now you see what a sentimental fool a woman can be.  Well; I’ll have it out with her.  I’ll live here in Brookville on equal terms with my neighbors.  If there was ever a debt between us, it’s been paid to the uttermost farthing.  I’ve paid it in flesh and blood and manhood.  Is there any money—­any property you can name worth eighteen years of a man’s life?  And such years—­ God! such years!”

Wesley Elliot stared.  At last he understood the girl, and as he thought of her shrinking aloofness standing guard over her eager longing for friends—­for affection, something hot and wet blurred his eyes.  He was scarcely conscious that the man, who had taken to himself the name with which he had become hatefully familiar during his years in Brookville, was still speaking, till a startling sentence or two aroused him.

“There’s no reason under heaven why you should not marry her, if you like.  Convict’s daughter?  Bah!  I snap my fingers in their faces.  My girl shall be happy yet.  I swear it!  But we’ll stop all this sickly sentimentality about the money.  We’ll—­”