"Wait, Sam," she said. "I am sorry, for I know you are tired and sleepy,
but you must sit up a while longer, and take Mr. Sanford home. I will
bring you an easy-chair in which you can sleep till I want you."

Thus speaking, she brought a large Boston rocker and a pillow for the
tired boy, who, she knew, would soon be fast asleep, with no suspicion
of what was about to transpire in the sick-room to which she next
repaired, closing the door behind her. Her father had both Burton's
hands in his, and was crying like a little child.

"Oh, my son, my son," he said, "if I could undo the past, I should not
have to turn my eyes from my own child in shame, and that I have done
ever since you were a boy, and came from Boston to see us. How old was
he, Hannah? How old was Burton when the terrible thing happened?"

"'Twelve," Hannah answered, and her father went wandering on like one
out of his mind, talking of Burton when he was a boy--of his dead
wife--of Hannah, who had suffered so long, and of the storm, which he
said was like the one which swept the New England hills thirty-one years
ago that very night, when the snow fell so deep that no one came near
the place till Monday.

"Three whole days," he said. "Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I had time
to hide the dark deed so securely that it has never been suspected."

Burton started quickly, and glanced at his sister with a look of amazed
inquiry. He had thought of forgery, and theft, and embezzlement, but
never of what his father's words might imply, and the cold sweat began
to froze from the palms of his hands while a kind of nightmare crept
over him, and kept him rooted to the spot as his father went on: