The mason listened gravely, his bright blue eyes unfathomable. He had had ample time, naturally, to think over the astounding communication Adelle had made to him, though he had come to no clear comprehension of it. A poor man, who for years has longed with all the force of his being for some of the privilege and freedom of wealth, could not be told that a large fortune was rightfully his without rousing scintillating lights in his hungry soul. "There isn't all the money there was when I got it," Adelle continued. "We have spent a lot of money--I don't know just how much there is left. But there must be at least a half of it--what belongs to you!" "Are you sure about this?" the mason demanded, frowning, a slight tremor in his voice; "about its belonging to father's folks? I never heard any one say there was money in the family." "There wasn't anything but the land--Clark's Field," Adelle explained. "It was just a farm in grandfather's time, and nothing was done with it for a long time. It was like that when I was a girl and living in Alton. It's only recently it has become so valuable." "You didn't say nothin' about any property the first time we talked about our being related," the mason observed. "I know," Adelle replied, with a sad little smile. Then she blurted out the truth,--"I knew it--not then, but afterwards. But I didn't tell you--I wanted to--but I meant never to tell. I meant to keep it all for myself and for him--my boy." The mason nodded understandingly, while Adelle tried to explain her ruthless decision. "You'd never had money and didn't know about the Field. And it seemed wrong to take it all away from him--it wasn't his fault, and I didn't want him to grow up poor and have to fight for a living," she explained bravely, displaying all the petty consideration she had given to her problem. Then she added with a sob--"Now it's all different! He was taken away," she said slowly, using the fatalistic formula which generations of religious superstition have engraved in human hearts. "He will not need it!" There was silence. Then unconsciously, as if 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.