She was looking earnestly at her father, over whose face there came a sudden pallor, and a hard, bitter expression, as he answered her: 

“Find her!  Of course!  Advertise! go to Wales, if necessary, in search of her, or get a lawyer to do it!  Break your vow; tell the whole truth, as you would have to, in order to establish his death; and get me hanged!  That would be the result of restitution.”

“Oh, father,” Hannah cried in terror.  “Is there no other way?  If I find this woman and give her her own, must I tell her the whole truth?  Will it not be enough if I say he is dead, that I saw him die, that I helped to lay him in his coffin?  I would not mention you, or that I had a father.  Surely she would be satisfied.”

“Yes, she might, but not the law.  I do not understand the ins and outs myself, there are so many questions necessary to make a thing legal, but this I am sure of; the whole thing would be ripped up, and I hanged, as I told you.  No, Hannah, you cannot find this woman while I live, which, please God, may not be long.  When I am gone, find her, if you like, but you must shield me.  Remember your vow, and—­and—­swear again, not to move in the matter while I live.”

He was growing so excited with this new fear that his daughter shrank from him in alarm, and at last yielding to his importunities took another oath of secrecy, which doomed the blue-eyed woman in Wales to a life of poverty, if such now were her portion.

“But what shall we do with this money?” Hannah asked.

And her father replied: 

“Keep it until you can restore it to its rightful owner without harm to me.  Elizabeth may never get it, but her heirs, some child yet unborn, may be made rich by you, one day, who knows?”

Yes, some child then unborn might one day be richer for this crime, but that did not comfort Hannah, now, and the future held no gleam of hope or happiness for her, as she put the papers, and the watch, and the gold, and the portrait, together in the tin box, and tried to think where she could hide them.

Owing to the storm, and the depth of the snow, no one visited the lonely farm-house until the Monday following the tragedy, when a neighbor came breaking through the drifts to see how it fared with Peter, who tried to appear natural as he talked of the depth of the snow, and inquired for the news, and mentally anathematized the dog Rover, who, the moment the stranger appeared, stretched himself before the bedroom door with a keen, watchful look in his eyes, as if he were on the alert and guarding the terrible secret.

And this habit, commenced that morning, was continued by the faithful creature up to the day of his death, which happened several years later.  No matter where he was, whether chasing a rabbit through the woods or sleeping by the stable door, he seemed by some instinct to know when a visitor arrived, and hastened at once to his post, from which neither threats nor persuasions could dislodge him.  For Hannah tried both, but when she coaxed he whined and whisked his big tail on the floor, and when she threatened he growled and showed his teeth, but staid there just the same.