"It's only the fear of being found out that keeps men honest," Gray went on after a moment. "We're told, from our youth up, that 'Honesty is the best policy,' and most of us are sensible enough to believe it—and so we're honest."
"Don't you believe it, lad?" burst with emphasis from Harding; and not even Gray's flippant rejoinder, "Not believe that 'Honesty is the best policy?' you can't mean that?" was able to check his eagerness to speak. He stopped in the path and laid his hand on Gray's arm, more moved than Gray had ever seen him before.
"You wouldn't talk like that if you'd seen that poor fellow die, Gray," he said. "There's more difference between doing right and doing wrong than just that you get punished for wrong-doing if you're found out. Sin drags a man down, lad; it eats the manhood out of him. It makes a ruin of what's best in him."
The words fell on ears dull to their meaning. And Harding was quickly silent; speech was always a difficult thing to him. He had never spoken so earnestly to Gray before.
When they came back to the hut Harding took out the tattered sheet of yellow paper from his breast-pocket and placed it in the small desk upon the shelf.
"One of us must take that over to the station," he said. "The bank authorities will be glad enough to get it."
Gray had heard enough of the conversation between Harding and Dearing to know what the paper was about, though Harding had not mentioned it before.
He stood at the door, swinging his heavy stock-whip in his hand.
"I should like to have a look at it," he said carelessly.
"So you shall, lad. And I think you'd better go over with it. But we'll talk of that to-night."