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.
"You don't think so?" Adelle mused, somewhat relieved. After a little time she came safely back to sound earth as was her wont,—"Anyway, it's all different now. I don't want to keep the money. It isn't mine—it never was; never really belonged to me. Perhaps that was why I spent it so badly.... I want you to have your share as soon as possible."
The fire had done its work, she might have said, if not in one way, at least in another. The result was that she no longer desired to thwart the workings of law and justice, of right as she knew it. She wished to divest herself as quickly as possible of that which properly belonged to another. After all, her money had not brought her much! Why should she cling to it?
The mason was still doubtful and observed frowningly,—
"It's a mighty long time since grandfather left Alton—more'n fifty years."
"Clark's Field has only been put on the market for a little over ten years," Adelle remarked. "They couldn't do it before, as I told you."
"But it's been settled now," the mason demurred. "I don't know the law, but it must be queer if the property could hang fire all these years and be growing richer all the time."
"Alton is a big city now where the old Clark farm was," Adelle explained.