man?

He stopped suddenly. In moodily turning over a heap of mining
clothing, blankets, and india-rubber boots, he had come upon an old
pickaxe--the one he had found in the shaft; the one he had
carefully preserved for a year, and then forgotten! Why had he not
remembered it before? He was frightened, not only at this sudden
resurrection of the proof he was seeking, but at his own fateful
forgetfulness. Why had he never thought of this when Slinn was
speaking? A sense of shame, as if he had voluntarily withheld it
from the wronged man, swept over him. He was turning away, when he
was again startled.

This time it was by a voice from below--a voice calling him--
Slinn's voice. How had the crippled man got here so soon, and what
did he want? He hurriedly laid aside the pick, which, in his first
impulse, he had taken to the door of the loft with him, and
descended the stairs. The old man was standing at the door of his
office awaiting him.

As Mulrady approached, he trembled violently, and clung to the
doorpost for support.

"I had to come over, Mulrady," he said, in a choked voice; "I could
stand it there no longer. I've come to beg you to forget all that
I have said; to drive all thought of what passed between us last
night out of your head and mine forever! I've come to ask you to
swear with me that neither of us will ever speak of this again
forever. It is not worth the happiness I have had in your
friendship for the last half-year; it is not worth the agony I have