tone at his feet and a blanket wrapped around him, in order
to make him sweat and break up the cold she was certain he had taken.

Meanwhile at the farm-house Burton and his sister were standing together
near the kitchen fire, where poor Grey had stood two hours before, and
heard what changed the coloring of his whole life. They were speaking of
him, and what they said was this:

"If it were only myself I might bear it," Burton said, "though life can
never be to me again what it has been, and I shall think like Cain that
the sin is branded on me; and I was so proud, and stood so high, and
meant to make the name of Jerrold so honorable a name that Grey and his
children would rejoice that they bore it. Of course Grey will never
know, but I shall, and that will make a difference. Hannah," he added,
quickly, struck by something in her face, "what did you mean, or rather
what did father mean by your making restitution to the peddler's
friends? What is there to restore?"

In his recital of his crime the old man had omitted to speak of the
money and the will, or, at most, he had touched so lightly upon them
that it had escaped the notice of his son, whose mind was wholly
absorbed in one idea, and that of the body buried under the floor within
a few feet of him. Hannah explained to him what her father meant, and
told him of the box and the gold, to which she had every year added the
interest--compound interest, too--so that the amount had more than
quadrupled, and she had found it necessary to have another and larger
box in which to keep the treasure.

"That is why I have so often asked you to change bills into gold for
me," she said. "Paper might depreciate in value, or the banks go down,
but gold is gold everywhere, and I have tried so hard to earn or save
the interest, denying myself many things which I should have enjoyed as
well as most women, and getting for myself the reputation of closeness
and even stinginess, which I did not deserve. I had to be economical
with myself to meet my payments, which increased as the years went on,
until they are so large that sometimes I have not been able to put the
whole in the box at the end of the year, and I am behindhand now, but I
keep an exact account, and shall make it up in time."

"But, Hannah, I used to give you money willingly, and would have given
you more if you had asked for it. I had no idea of this," Burton said,
and she replied:

"Yes, I know you would, but I did n