“Oh, Father in heaven, forgive, forgive!  Thou knowest I did not mean to do it.  Have mercy, have mercy!  Blot out my great sin, and if a prayer for the dead is not wrong, grant that this man, my friend, whom I sent into eternity with no time for repentance, may be among the saved; forbid that I should destroy him body and soul.  Oh, help me! for the brand of Cain is upon me, and already my punishment seems greater than I can bear.  If I could give my life for his I would do so gladly, but I cannot, and I must live on in torment forever and ever, with this blood-stain on my hands burning like coals of fire.  Oh, my heavenly Father, have mercy!  I did not mean to do it.”

His head was on the rough coffin and he was sobbing in wild abandonment of despair, while Hannah, too, knelt beside him, 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.