And Hannah took the offered hand and held fast to it as a drowning man holds to a straw, while the tears ran like rain down her pale face.
"Hannah! Burton! Are you there, and the minister? There is no time to lose," came feebly from the sick-room, and Hannah said: "He is calling us; go to him, please. I will join you in a minute."
Then she hurried to the summer kitchen, where she found Sam, who thought his work done, and was removing his boots preparatory to going to bed.
"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: "But, oh! what agony of remorse I have endured! The tortures of the lost are not more intense than my sufferings have been! Think of my meeting people day after day with the mark of Cain upon my brow, burning there so hotly that it seemed as if you must all see it, and know my guilt. How could I join myself to God's people with this sin unconfessed? I could not, and yet, I feel in my heart that I am forgiven, washed in His blood as white as snow, so that there is rest for me in Paradise. Still, I must confess; I must tell you, my son, and you, my minister; but no one else--not Grey--no, no, not the boy Grey, who loves me so much. His life must not be shadowed with disgrace. He must not hate me in my coffin. Oh, Grey! Grey! May God bless the boy and give him every needful happiness, and make him so good and noble that his life will blot out the stain upon our name.