His voice appeared to rouse the younger man, and bring him to himself. He stepped forward, with his hands behind him and his face still set, wild and drawn, and said brokenly: "Bill! Bill! Strike back! Do something! Old friend!" "I cain't," came the reply, in a helpless monotone. "You know if it were any other man I'd kill him! But you don't understand yet, and--" "I made him bring me here," Joan said, coming closer, until the shadows of the three were almost together. Her voice had a strange hopelessness in it, and yet a calm firmness. "He came to talk it over with me, on your account. Pleading your cause--begging me that, no matter what happened, I should not change my attitude toward you. Toward you, I say! He said your sense of honesty and loyalty to Sloan would drive you to demanding restitution even though it broke your heart. He said he loved you more than anything on earth, and begged me to help him find some way to spare--not me, or my father--but you!" Dick tried to speak, but his throat restricted until he clutched it with his fingers, and his lips were white and hard. "I did not believe that what he said was true," the voice went on, coming as from depths of desolation and misery, and with dead levels dulled by grief beyond emotion. "I have believed in my father! I thought there must be some mistake. I demanded of your partner that he lay off his own shift, and bring me here where we might listen. Oh, it was true--it was true!" She suddenly turned and caught the steel handle of a candlestick in her hand, and tore its long steel point from the crevice. "But I've found the way," she said. "I've found the way. You must come with me--now! Right now, I say. We shall have this over with, and then--and then--I shall go away from here; for always!" "Not that," Dick said, holding his hands toward her. "Not that, Joan! What are you going to do?" "I'm going to my father. He, too, must be spared. He must give it back. It must never be known. I must save him disgrace. It must be done to-night--now!" She started down the drift toward the cage, walking determinedly, and Dick's lips opened again to beg her to come back; but Bill's hand was on his shoulder, and his grave and kindly voice in his ear. "Go with her, boy. She's right. It's the only way. Have it over with to-night. If you don't you'll break her heart, as well as your own." They followed her to the cage, and the big miner gave the hoisting bell. The cage floated upward, and into the pale twilight. Heedless of anything around, they walked across the yard, and turned into the roadway leading down the gulch. "Will you come?" she asked, turning toward Bill. "No," he said slowly. "I'm not needed. Besides, I couldn't stand another blow to-day!"