"You signed the note?" said the judge.
"Yes," replied Arthur. He laughed with the frankness of self-derision that augurs so well for a man's teachableness.
"He must have guessed," continued the judge, "that a contest is useless."
At that last word Arthur changed expression, changed color—or, rather, lost all color. "Useless?" he repeated, so overwhelmed that he clean forgot pride of appearances and let his feelings have full play in his face. Useless! A contest useless. Then—
"I did have some hopes," interrupted Judge Torrey's deliberate, judicial tones, "but I had to give them up after I talked with Schulze and President Hargrave. Your father may have been somewhat precipitate, Arthur, but he was sane when he made that will. He believed his wealth would be a curse to his children. And—I ain't at all sure he wasn't right. As I look round this town, this whole country, and see how the second generation of the rich is rotten with the money-cancer, I feel that your grand, wise father had one of the visions that come only to those who are about to leave the world and have their eyes cleared of the dust of the combat, and their minds cooled of its passions." Here the old man leaned forward and laid his hand on the knee of the white, haggard youth. "Arthur," he went on, "your father's mind may have been befogged by his affections in the years when he was letting his children do as they pleased, do like most children of the rich. And his mind may have been befogged by his affections again, after he made that will and went down into the Dark Valley. But, I tell you, boy, he was sane when he made that will. He was saner than most men have the strength of mind to be on the best day of their whole lives."
Arthur was sitting with elbows on the desk; his face stared out, somber and gaunt, from between his hands. "How much he favors his father," thought the old judge. "What a pity it don't go any deeper than looks." But the effect of the resemblance was sufficient to make it impossible for him to offer any empty phrases of cheer and consolation. After a long time the hopeless, dazed expression slowly faded from the young man's face; in its place came a calm, inscrutable look. The irresponsible boy was dead; the man had been born—in rancorous bitterness, but in strength and decision.
It was the man who said, as he rose to depart, "I'll write Dawson that
I've decided to abandon the contest."
"Ask him to return the note," advised Torrey. "But," he added, "I doubt if he will."
"He won't," said Arthur. "And I'll not ask him. Anyhow, a few dollars would be of no use to me. I'd only prolong the agony of getting down to where I've got to go."
"Five thousand dollars is right smart of money," protested the judge. "On second thought, I guess you'd better let me negotiate with him." The old man's eyes were sparkling with satisfaction in the phrases that were forming in his mind for the first letter to Dawson.