He is about to leave his job and his town for a more tranquil future. He receives a telegram that Frank Miller, a notorious criminal that Kane had captured some years before, has been paroled and is heading back to town with his gang. Against everyone's advice and preference, Kane stays because it's the right thing to do. The screenplay was written by Carl Foreman who, during the film shoot, was called up by HUAC to "name names" which he refused to do and was later blacklisted.
After the film, we will (by Zoom) discuss the complexity of these events with Amanda Foreman (the daughter of Carl Foreman and the author of Georgiana; A World on Fire: Britain's Role in the American Civil War; and The World Made by Women) and Maria Cooper Janis (the daughter of Gary Cooper.)