The judge nodded, and added,—
"Too true! But do you know how few of these attempts ever succeed—even get to a trial of the case? Almost none. Usually they are fraudulent schemes of rascals who collect money from gullible persons and then put the money into their own pockets and nothing whatever is done. It would be very foolish of these cousins of yours to try anything of the sort. It would make them miserable for years and eat up what little money they have. You must make this all clear to the young man who is to meet you here. Send him to me if he has any doubts!"
"What can I do about it, then?" Adelle demanded. "It belongs to them, and I want them to have it. There must be some way!"
The judge looked at the young woman with a curious, indulgent smile. He had gathered from her story that her own experience with Clark's Field had not been a successful one by any means. Was that why she was so anxious to shoulder off upon these unknown members of her family the burden of riches which had proved too much for her? Just what was her motive? A conscience newly aroused by her terrible tragedy and hypersensitive? An interest womanwise in this young stone mason, who was the only one of the California Clarks she had yet seen?... The judge leaned forward and took Adelle's hand.
"Tell me, my dear," he said, "just why you want them to have your money. For of 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!