course it would be _your_ money that they would get in the end,
if by any possibility they could win their case."

Adelle looked into the old man's kind eyes, but did not reply. It was
not easy for her to explain the persistent purpose that moved her.

"Has wealth meant so much to you? or so little?" the judge asked,
thinking of his own part in providing Adelle's fortune for her.

Adelle slowly shook her head.

"Do you think that these other Clarks would use it more wisely?" And as
Adelle did not reply at once he repeated,--"Have you any reason to
believe that they would be happier than you have been or better?"

"Money doesn't make happiness," Adelle said with a pathetic conviction
of the truth of the truism. The energy of her life, it seemed, as in the
case of so many others, had been given to proving the truth of axioms
one after another!

The judge smiled and released her hand. He sat back in his deep chair
watching Adelle with kindly eyes. He seemed to see the woman's awakening
mind slowly at work before him, struggling patiently to grasp what was
still just beyond her comprehension.

"What shall I do?" she appealed finally. "Tell me!"

"There is something you can do--a very simple thing! I wonder it has not
occurred to you before."

"What is it?" Adelle asked eagerly.

"You can give part of your own fortune--an exact half of it if you
like--to these new cousins of yours, and so accomplish what you want
without hurting any one but yourself."

"I don't think they would take the money that way--I don't believe _he_
would!" Adelle said doubtfully.

"There are few persons," the judge observed indulgently, "who cannot be
induced to take money in one way or another!"

"It isn't quite the same thing," Adelle said, in a disappointed tone. "I
don't think he would like it that way."

"It amounts to the same thing in the end, doesn't it?"

"Perhaps."

She did not tell the judge that if she should give these California
Clarks one half of the fortune she had received from Clark's Field, she
should be poor, perhaps destitute.

"But before you decide to do anything, you must make up your mind very
carefully, for it cannot be undone. Are you quite sure that you are
doing the wisest thing in turning over such a large fortune to persons
you know almost nothing about?"

"I know _him_--the mason, and I think it would be safer with him than
with me."

The judge smiled enigmatically.

"If he would take it from