sterday her
conception of her problem had changed and grown. Adelle was living fast
these days, not in the sense in which she and Archie had lived fast
according to their kind, but psychologically and spiritually she was
living fast. Her state of yesterday had already given place to another
broader, loftier one: she was fast escaping from the purely personal out
into the freedom of the impersonal.

"Allowing for Mr. Clark's natural vivacity of statement," the judge
observed with an appreciative chuckle, "these California relatives of
yours, so far as I can see, are pretty much like everybody else in the
world, struggling along the best they can with the limitations of
environment and character which they have inherited.... And I am rather
inclined to agree with Mr. Clark that it might be unwise to give them,
most of them, any special privilege which they hadn't earned for
themselves over their neighbors."

"What right have they got to it anyway?" the mason demanded.

"Oh, when you go into rights, Mr. Clark," the judge retorted, "the whole
thing is a hopeless muddle. None of us in a very real sense has any
rights--extremely few rights, at any rate."

"Well, then, they've no good reason for havin' the money."

"I agree with you. There is no good reason why these twenty-five Clarks,
more or less, should arbitrarily be selected for the favors of Clark's
Field. And yet they might prove to be as good material to work upon as
any other twenty-five taken at random."

Adelle looked up expectantly to the judge. She understood that his mind
was thinking forward to wider reaches than his words indicated.

"But you would want to know much more about them than you do now, to
study each case carefully in all its bearings, and then doubtless you
would make your mistakes, with the best of judgment!"

"I don't see what you mean," the mason said.

"Nor I," said Adelle.

"Let us have some lunch first," the judge replied. "We have done a good
deal this morning and need food. Perhaps later we shall all arrive at a
complete understanding."

* * * * *

At the close of their luncheon the judge remarked to Adelle,--

"Your cousin and I, Mrs. Clark, have talked over your idea of giving to
him and his relatives what the law will not compel you to distribute of
Clark's Field. He doesn't seem to think well of the idea."

"It's foolish," the mason growled.

Adelle looked at him swiftly, with a little s