He knew that the men who had set fire to the Black Forge Mills, no matter who they were, should be punished for their crime. He knew that to know who the guilty parties were, and then to refuse to disclose that knowledge, made him in the eyes of the law an accessory after the fact. He knew that to allow the criminals to go unpunished was really to countenance their deed. At least, had he allowed himself to prayerfully reason the matter out, he would have known all this. But one of those criminals was his own father, and to him it seemed to make a vast difference in the case, or, at least, he wanted it to. He would not have hesitated a moment to disclose who the guilty men were, had not his father been one of the number. Duty would have been very plain then, and he would have at once admitted that it would be absolutely wrong to shield the incendiaries from the punishment they so richly deserved. But his own father! His heart rebelled against disclosing a single thing that would show his own parent to be a criminal in the eyes of the law. No matter if that father had willfully made himself a criminal, how could he, the son, disclose the fact? What little love and respect he still had in his heart for that father made him unwilling to do what seemed so terrible a thing. Then, too, a little pride had, unconsciously perhaps, come into his heart, and influenced him greatly in his trying to believe that his duty might be to keep silent. He did so want the Branford name redeemed from the evil reputation that had gathered about it. George and his sisters, as well as he himself, were now all trying to live honest, upright lives. This was a great deal. But there were two other brothers who were fugitives from justice; how could he add a third name, and that his father's, to the criminal list? He could not reveal the names of the other incendiaries without his father's becoming known. Was it not, then, duty for him to hide his shameful secret so deep in his own breast that it should never be discovered by other eyes?