"That may quiet gossip against your children," said Torrey, when he had taken down Hiram's slowly enunciated words, "but it does not change the extraordinary character of the will." "John," said Hiram, "can you think of a single instance in which inherited wealth has been a benefit, a single case where a man has become more of a man than he would if he hadn't had it?" Hiram waited long. Torrey finally said: "That may be, but--" But what? Torrey did not know, and so came to a full stop. "I've been trying for weeks to think of one," continued Hiram, "and whenever I thought I'd found one, I'd see, on looking at all the facts, that it only _seemed_ to be so. And I recalled nearly a hundred instances right here in Saint X where big inheritances or little had been ruinous." "I have never thought on this aspect of the matter before," said Torrey. "But to bring children up in the expectation of wealth, and then to leave them practically nothing, looks to me like--like cheating them." "It does, John," Hiram answered. "I've pushed my boy and my girl far along the broad way that leads to destruction. I must take the consequences. But God won't let me divide the punishment for my sins with them. I see my duty clear. I must do it. Bring the will at five o'clock." Hiram's eyes were closed; his voice sounded to Torrey as if it were the utterance of a mind far, far away--as far away as that other world which had seemed vividly real to Hiram all his life; it seemed real and near to Torrey, looking into his old friend's face. "The power that's guiding him," Torrey said to himself, "is one I daren't dispute with." And he went away with noiseless step and with head reverently bent. CHAPTER VI MRS. WHITNEY NEGOTIATES The Rangers' neighbors saw the visits of Hargrave and Torrey. Immediately a rumor of a bequest to Tecumseh was racing through the town and up the Bluffs and through the fashionable suburb. It arrived at Point Helen, the seat of the Whitneys, within an hour after Torrey left Ranger. It had accumulated confirmatory detail by that time--the bequest was large; was very large; was half his fortune--and the rest of the estate was to go to the college should Arthur and Adelaide die childless. Mrs. Whitney lost no time. At half-past four she was seated in the same chair in which Hargrave and Torrey had sat. It was not difficult to bring up the subject of the two marriages, which were doubly to unite the houses and fortunes of Ranger and Whitney--the marriages of Arthur and Janet, of Ross and Adelaide. "And, of course," said Mrs. Whitney, "we all want the young people started right. I don't believe children ought to feel dependent on their parents. It seems to me that puts filial and parental love on a very low plane. Don't you think so?" "Yes," said Hiram.