ed, and looked at the white, blood-stained face
over which her father was bending, she knew the man was dead, and with a
cry of horror, ran from the room out into the darkness, where shriek
after shriek of "_Murder! Murder!_" rang out upon the air and was
drowned by the louder scream of the terrible storm which was sweeping
over the hills that Thanksgiving night.

Beside her in the snow crouched the house-dog, Rover, trembling with
fear, and mingling his howling cry of terror with her more awful one of
murder. The dog had been a witness of the fray, keeping close by his
mistress' side, and occasionally uttering a low growl of disapproval as
the blows fell thick and fast, and when at last it was over, and the
dead man lay white and still, with his blood upon the floor, Rover
sprang toward his master with a loud, angry bark and then fled with
Hannah into the storm, where he mingled his cry with hers and added to
the horror of the scene.

"Half-crazed with what he had done, and terrified lest be should be
detected, Peter Jerrold's first idea was of self-preservation from the
law, and the cries he had heard outside filled him with rage and fear.
Staggering to his daughter's side he struck the dog a savage blow, then
taking Hannah roughly by the arm and leading her into the house, he said
to her, fiercely:

"Are you crazy, girl, that you yell out your father's guilt to the
world? You and that brute of a dog, whom I will kill and so have him out
of the way! Here, you Rover, come here!" he said to the dog, who was
standing before Hannah, bristling with anger and growling at intervals,
"Come here while I finish you," and he opened the door of the wood-shed
where he always kept the gun he had carried in the war of 1812.

Divining his intention Hannah stepped between him and Rover, on whose
head she laid her hand protectingly, while she said:

"Father, you will not touch the dog, if you value your own safety, for
if you do, every man in Allington shall know what you have done, before
to-morrow dawns. Isn't it enough that you have killed _him_!" and she
pointed shudderingly to the inanimate form upon the floor.

For a moment Peter Jerrold regarded her with the face of a maniac; then
his expression changed, and with a burst of tears and sobs he fell upon
his knees at her feet, and clasping the hem of her dress abjectly in his
hands, besought her to pity him, to have mercy, and save him from the
gallows, for in the first frenz