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.

“Thank you,” said Arthur.  But it was evident that he was not interested.  “I must put the past behind me,” he went on presently.  “I mustn’t think of it.”

“After all,” suggested Torrey, “you’re not as bad off as more than ninety-nine per cent of the young men.  You’re just where they are—­on bed rock.  And you’ve got the advantage of your education.”

Arthur smiled satirically.  “The tools I learned to use at college,” said he, “aren’t the tools for the Crusoe Island I’ve been cast away on.”

“Well, I reckon a college don’t ruin a young chap with the right stuff in him, even if it don’t do him any great sight of good.”  He looked uneasily at Arthur, then began:  “If you’d like to study law”—­as if he feared the offer would be accepted, should he make it outright.

“No; thank you, I’ve another plan,” replied Arthur, though “plan” would have seemed to Judge Torrey a pretentious name for the hazy possibilities that were beginning to gather in the remote corners of his mind.

“I supposed you wouldn’t care for the law,” said Torrey, relieved that his faint hint of a possible offer had not got him into trouble.  He liked Arthur, but estimated him by his accent and his dress, and so thought him probably handicapped out of the running by those years of training for a career of polite uselessness.  “That East!” he said to himself, looking pityingly at the big, stalwart youth in the elaborate fopperies of fashionable mourning.  “That damned East!  We send it most of our money and our best young men; and what do we get from it in return?  Why, sneers and snob-ideas.”  However, he tried to change his expression to one less discouraging; but his face