f uttered by another person,
came from her the awful judgment,--"Perhaps that was why he was
taken--because I wouldn't tell about the money."

"It ain't so!" the mason retorted hastily, with a healthy reaction
against this terrible creed of his ancestors. "It had nothin' to do with
your actions, with you, his being smothered in the fire--don't you go
worryin' 'bout that!"

In his dislike of the doctrine and his desire to deal generously with
the woman, the mason was not wholly right, and later Adelle was to
perceive this. For if she had not been such as she was she would not
have willfully taken to herself such a disastrous person as Archie and
thus planted the seed of tragedy in her life as in her womb. If human
beings are responsible for anything in their lives, she was responsible
for Archie, which sometime she must recognize.

"You don't think so?" Adelle mused, somewhat relieved. After a little
time she came safely back to sound earth as was her wont,--"Anyway, it's
all different now. I don't want to keep the money. It isn't mine--it
never was; never really belonged to me. Perhaps that was why I spent it
so badly.... I want you to have your share as soon as possible."

The fire had done its work, she might have said, if not in one way, at
least in another. The result was that she no longer desired to thwart
the workings of law and justice, of right as she knew it. She wished to
divest herself as quickly as possible of that which properly belonged to
another. After all, her money had not brought her much! Why should she
cling to it?

The mason was still doubtful and observed frowningly,--

"It's a mighty long time since grandfather left Alton--more'n fifty
years."

"Clark's Field has only been put on the market for a little over ten
years," Adelle remarked. "They couldn't do it before, as I told you."

"But it's been settled now," the mason demurred. "I don't know the law,
but it must be queer if the property could hang fire all these years and
be growing richer all the time."

"Alton is a big city now where the old Clark farm was," Adelle
explained.

"I suppose it's growed considerable."

Then both were silent. The mason's mind was turbulent with feelings and
thoughts. Across the glorious reach of land and sky before his eyes
there opened a vision of radiant palaces and possessions, all that money
could buy to appease the desires of a starved life.

"My folks will be some surprised," he remarked at l