"Perhaps not, my son," the old man answered, feebly. "For you it might
have been better if I had never spoken. Possibly it is a morbid fancy,
but I felt that I must confess to my minister. My conscience said so,
and that I must tell you in order that you may be a comfort and help to
Hannah in what she means to do."

"What does she mean to do?" Burton asked, in alarm, and his father
replied:

"Make restitution in some way to the friends of the man I killed, if she
can find them."

"Oh!" and Burton set his teeth firmly together as he thought what danger
there might be in restitution, for that would involve confession, and
that meant disgrace to the Jerrold name. "I shall prevent that if I can;
it is well, after all, that I should know," he thought; then to his
father he said; "Who was the man? Where are his friends? Tell me all
now."

"Yes, I will; but, Hannah, look--I thought I heard some one moving in
the next room, a few minutes ago," the old man said, and going to the
door, Hannah glanced around the empty kitchen which bore no trace of the
white-faced boy who not long before, had left it with an aching heart,
and who at that moment was kneeling in the snow and asking God to
forgive him for his grandfather's sin.

"There is no one there, and Sam is sleeping soundly in the room beyond,"
she said, as she returned to her father's side, and taking her place by
him passed her arm around him and supported and reassured him, while he