The old judge received Arthur like a son, listened sympathetically as the young man gave him in detail the interview with Dawson.  Even as Arthur recalled and related, he himself saw Dawson’s duplicity; for, that past master of craft had blundered into the commonest error of craft of all degrees—­he had underestimated the intelligence of the man he was trying to cozen.  He, rough in dress and manners and regarding “dudishness” as unfailing proof of weak-mindedness, had set down the fashionable Arthur, with his Harvard accent and his ignorance of affairs, as an unmitigated ass.  He had overlooked the excellent natural mind which false education and foolish associations had tricked out in the motley, bells and bauble of “culture”; and so, he had taken no pains to cozen artistically.  Also, as he thought greediness the strongest and hardiest passion in all human beings, because it was so in himself, he had not the slightest fear that anyone or anything could deflect his client from pursuing the fortune which dangled, or seemed to dangle, tantalizingly near.

Arthur, recalling the whole interview, was accurate where he had been visionary, intelligent where he had been dazed.  He saw it all, before he was half done; he did not need Torrey’s ejaculated summary:  “The swindling scoundrel!” to confirm him.

“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.”