Adelle thought she remembered being taken there as a young girl by her aunt.
"I mean have you been there recently, since it has been subdivided and brought into human use?"
No, she had not been in Alton since her return to America, in fact not for seven years.
"Then, Mrs. Davis," the judge said very earnestly, almost sternly, "I most strongly advise you to go there at once and see what has happened to your grandfather's old pasture. Look at the source of your wealth! It must interest you deeply, I should think! The changes that you will find in Clark's Field are very great, the spiritual changes even greater than the physical ones, perhaps. Go to Clark's Field, by all means, before you leave the city. Go at once! And take your husband with you.... And now, Mr. Niver," he said to the astonished trust officer, "if you have all the papers—yes, I have examined the inventory of the estate sufficiently. Mr. Smith brought it to me some time ago...."
There followed certain legal exchanges between the court and the trust officer, while Adelle thought over what the judge had said to her about Clark's Field and felt rather queer, uncomfortably so, as if the probate judge had distilled a subtle medicine in her cup of joy, or had clouded the clear horizon of her young life with a mysterious veil of unintelligible considerations. Yet he seemed to be, as she had always thought him, a good old man, and wise. And he was making no trouble about giving her and Archie the money they so much wanted to have. Even now he was writing his signature with the old-fashioned steel pen he used, a clear, beautiful signature, upon several documents. As he finished the last one, he glanced up at her and with another of his fine smiles, as if he wished to reassure her after his little sermon, said to Adelle,—
"Now, Mrs. Davis, it is yours,—your own property, to do with as you will. You are no longer a ward of my court!"
He rose from his judge's chair and took her hand, which he held a trifle longer than necessary, smiling down upon the woman-girl, his lips apparently forming themselves for another little speech, but he did not utter it. Instead, he dropped Adelle's hand and with a nod of dismissal turned into his chambers. So Adelle left the probate court, as she thought for the last time, wondering what the judge wanted to say to her, but had refrained from speaking.
It would be interesting to know, also, what were the entries that Judge Orcutt made in his little note-book upon this, his final official act in the Clark's Field drama. But that we have no means of discovering. All legal requirements had been duly fulfilled, and everything else must remain within the judge's breast for his own spiritual nourishment—and for Adelle's if she could divine what he meant.