Miss Breen walked up and down the floor for an interval; then she stopped.
“There’s one way out of this affair,” she ventured, “and just one.”
Nash nodded. “You mean—we’ve go to get those false specifications! Isn’t that it?”
“Yes. We’ve got to get them. But that does not mean,” she said, changing her tone, “that you are to stay here. You get away before morning. I will try to find Hooker and the papers. Once I have them I will let you know. Then you can return.”
Nash shook his head gravely. “Impossible!”
“Oh, why do you act so foolish?” she demanded. “It may be months before we can locate those specifications. Meanwhile they will hurry the trial, and you’ll be sentenced.”
“I am innocent. What have I to fear?”
“It is the innocent man who always suffers,” she answered bitterly.
“This isn’t New York, Miss Breen,” Nash replied. “They do things differently out here. I’m not afraid.”
Miss Breen sank helplessly to a chair. “Why do you always prate about the East and the West?” she exclaimed. “A crooked job is a crooked job, whether it is staged in Los Angeles or New York. Sigsbee is a shrewd man, and he has laid a shrewd trap. Yet you’re willing to bow submissively, and——” She stopped suddenly.