with a face as white as
the dead man's and eyes into which there had come a look of fright and
horror, which would never entirely leave them until her dying day.

In a corner of the room Rover had been lying for the last fifteen or
twenty minutes, eyeing the proceedings warily, and occasionally giving a
growl of disapproval when his master came near him, and when the body
was lifted into the coffin, he uttered a long, deep howl which echoed
through the house like the wail of some troubled spirit, drifting on the
wings of the wind still moaning around the windows and the doors.

"Oh, Rover, Rover, don't!" Hannah cried, going to him, and winding her
arms around his neck, "Be quiet, Rover, or I shall die."

As if he comprehended her meaning the noble brute lay down again, and
resting his head upon his paws, looked on until his master gave way to
his paroxysm of grief. Then he arose, and going up to the prostrate man,
licked his hair and face just as, earlier in the night, he had licked
Hannah's when she lay beside him on the floor. He was only a dog, but
his sympathy was reassuring to the wretched man, who looked up, and with
a faint smile, said to his daughter:

"Rover forgives and pities me. I will take it as a token that God will
do so, too; and now we must finish our work."

As if endued with superhuman strength, Hannah helped her father carry
the body to the grave he had dug, and there they buried it, while her
tears fell like rain, and her father's lips moved with the words:

"Forgive, forgive; I did not mean to kill him."

Everything belonging to the peddler was buried with him, except a
leathern bag in which was the gold he had counted in the evening, and a
small tin box fastened by a padlock, the key of which was found in his
pocket, and his silver watch, which Hannah laid aside with a thought of
the sister Elizabeth, whom he had mentioned with so much affection, and
who, he said, was to be his heir. The money and the watch belonged to
her and must be kept sacredly until the day when Hannah could safely
give them to her, as she fully meant to do. For the rest there was
nothing of any value, and they buried it with him, and filled the grave,
or rather the father filled it, while Hannah held the light, and Rover
looked on curiously.

Then, when all was done, when the floor was nailed down securely, the
bed moved back to its place, the blood-stains washed from the kitchen
floor, and there was nothing left to