He provoked me so, he hit me first, and I struck harder than I thought,
and he is dead. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? I cannot be hung;
you will not betray me. Promise me you will not!"

She had no thought of betraying him, except as she had threatened it in
defense of Rover, who now stood up erect, looking first at her, and then
at her father, as if curious to see how it would end.

"Father, I have no wish to see you hung," Hannah said, while her knees
shook under her at the thought. "I shall not witness against you, if I
can help it. But what will you do? How can you keep it a secret? People
will know, when they see him, that he did not die by fair means."

To her the thought of hiding the crime had not occurred, and a shudder
of horror ran through her frame when her father said:

"People need not know. He was going to Europe. Let them think he has
gone, and we will bury him, you and I, where he will never be found."

"Bury him here? Where? and Hannah's teeth chattered with fright, as she
thought of living all her life in a house which held a buried secret in
the shape of a murdered man.

"Bury him under the floor of my room, over in the corner where the bed
always stands," the father replied so calmly that Hannah looked at him
wonderingly to see if he were utterly void of feeling, that he could
speak so quietly of what filled her with unspeakable dread.

But he was neither callous nor unconcerned. He was merely stunned with
the magnitude and suddenness of his crime, and the natural fear of its