mile that was sad.

"I was afraid he would say that, Judge," she said softly.

"You know any man would!... I ain't never begged from a woman yet."

"The woman, it seems to me, has nothing to do with the question," the
judge put in.

"And it isn't begging," Adelle protested. "It's really yours, a part of
it, as much as mine,--more, perhaps."

"It's nobody's by rights, so far as I can see!" the mason retorted with
his dry laugh.

"Exactly!" the judge exclaimed. "Young man, you have pronounced the one
final word of wisdom on the whole situation. With that for a premise we
can start safely towards a conclusion. Clark's Field doesn't belong to
you or to your cousin or to any of the Clarks living or dead. It belongs
to itself--to the people who live upon it, who use it, who need it to
get from it their daily bread and shelter."

"But," jeered the mason, "you can't call 'em out into the street and
hand each of 'em a thousand-dollar bill."

"No, and you would make a lot of trouble for everybody if you
did--especially for the Alton police courts, I am afraid! But you can
act as trustees for Clark's Field--" He turned to Adelle and continued
whimsically,--"That's what the old Field did for you, my dear, with my
assistance. Its wealth was tied up for fifty years to be let loose in
your lap! You found it not such a great gift, after all, so why not pour
it back upon the Field?... Why not make a splendid public market on that
vacant lot that's still left? And put some public baths in, and a public
hall for everybody's use, and a few other really permanent
improvements?--which I fear the city will never feel able to do! In that
way you would be giving back to Clark's Field and its real owners what
properly belongs to it and to them."

So the judge's thought was out at last. It did not take Adelle long to
understand it now.

"I'll do it," she said simply, as if the judge had merely voiced the
struggling ideas of her own brain. "But how shall I go to work?"

"I think your cousin can show you," the judge laughed. "He has many more
ideas than I should dare call my own about what society should do for
its disinherited. Suppose you talk it over with him and get his
suggestions."

"My God!" the stone mason groaned enigmatically.

The sardonic smile spread over his lean face as he further explained
himself,--

"It ain't exactly what I took this trip from California for."

"You didn't understand then," the judge remarked.