. I cannot be hung. I must hide it, bury it, and you
must help and swear on the Bible not to tell so long as I live. Will you
do it? Answer, quick, and let us get to work, for I am a very coward,
and hear voices in the storm as of people coming to take me. Will you
help me, and will you swear?"

"Oh, father, father," Hannah cried, in an agony of entreaty; "do not ask
me to help! Do not ask me to swear, though I promise not to tell, if I
can avoid it. But if he is missed, if inquiry is made for him, if he is
traced here, and I am questioned, am put upon my oath, I cannot tell a
lie, and maybe they would not hang you when they knew the circumstances.
He was very unreasonable and aggravating, and called us both liars. I
can testify to that. Oh, father, consider a moment! Would it not be
better to go at once, and confess the truth to some one who has
influence. Captain Grey is our friend. Tell him, and ask his advice. Go,
father; now, and leave him where he lies. I shall not be afraid to stay
alone, knowing you are doing right. Go, father."

She was on her knees before him now, clasping his feet, and pleading
piteously. But she might as well have talked to a stone.

"Give himself up to the hangman? Never!" he answered. And she was no
daughter of his to desire his death, as she evidently did. She could
stay there in the corner with her dog, as great a sneak as herself! He
did not wish her services; he could manage alone, he said, angrily, as
he turned from her and entered his room, where she heard him moving out
his bed, and knew that he was taking up a portion of the floor.

Then there came over her a great blackness, and a buzzing in her head
like the sound of many bees in the summer time, and she fell upon her
face, unconscious of everything. How long she lay thus she did not know,
but when she came to herself again there was no light in the room except
that made by the dying fire upon the hearth and Rover was licking her
cold face and hands, and now and then uttering a low whine as if in
token of sympathy. The body was still upon the floor near her, but from
her father's room there came a sound, the import of which she understood
perfectly. Shivering as with a chill, she moaned:

"Oh! how can I bear it? My life will be one long, living death, and I
shall always want to shriek out the dreadful thing which father says I
must keep! Can I? Ought I? And could they hang my father? I do not think
so. They would call it mans