“Could you not do so, as you are one of the officials, without my doing as you wish me to do?”
“Well, no. I should be suspected.”
“Then how could you do so if I did as you request me to do—disown my name?”
“Well, well!”
“You are doing wrong, Oliver, to try to get me in deeper instead of helping me out. Why don’t you go out and look up the real murderer and prove your brother innocent? I am quite sure I should not disgrace you if it were proved that I had been sent here an innocent man.”
“You see, after one has been behind prison bars, he is always looked down upon by the public.”
“But not in the eyes of God. He knows the guilty from the innocent.”
“Then you feel that you would rather stay in prison and work ten years, and go out a broken man and penniless, than to receive five thousand dollars, as I have promised you?”
“If I have to lie for it, I’ll take the poverty and peace of mind.”
“I am sorry for you, Clarence, and I shall return and have another talk with you some day. Perhaps you will change your mind. Good-bye.”