"Let's go out," came shortly.
"Why?"
"It's there!" In the light of the lantern,
Harry's face was white, his big lips livid. "Let's go—"
But Fairchild stopped him.
"Harry," he said, and there was determination in his voice, "if it's there—we 've got to face it. I 'll be the one who will suffer. My father is gone. There are no accusations where he rests now; I 'm sure of that. If—if he ever did anything in his life that wasn't right, he paid for it. We don't know what happened, Harry—all we are sure of is that if it's what we 're—we 're afraid of, we 've gone too far now to turn back. Don't you think that certain people would make an investigation if we should happen to quit the mine now?"
"The Rodaines!"
"Exactly. They would scent something, and within an hour they 'd be down in here, snooping around. And how much worse would it be for them to tell the news—than for us!"
"Nobody 'as to tell it—" Harry was staring at his carbide flare—"there 's a wye."
"But we can't take it, Harry. In my father's letter was the statement that he made only one mistake—that of fear. I 'm going to believe him—and in spite of what I find here, I 'm going to hold him innocent, and I 'm going to be fair and square and aboveboard about it all. The world can think what it pleases—about him and about me. There 's nothing on my conscience—and I know that if my father had not made the mistake of running away when he did, there would have been nothing on his."