"Oh, Rover, Rover, don't!" Hannah cried, going to him, and winding her
arms around his neck, "Be quiet, Rover, or I shall die."
As if he comprehended her meaning the noble brute lay down again, and
resting his head upon his paws, looked on until his master gave way to
his paroxysm of grief. Then he arose, and going up to the prostrate man,
licked his hair and face just as, earlier in the night, he had licked
Hannah's when she lay beside him on the floor. He was only a dog, but
his sympathy was reassuring to the wretched man, who looked up, and with
a faint smile, said to his daughter:
"Rover forgives and pities me. I will take it as a token that God will
do so, too; and now we must finish our work."
As if endued with superhuman strength, Hannah helped her father carry
the body to the grave he had dug, and there they buried it, while her
tears fell like rain, and her father's lips moved with the words:
"Forgive, forgive; I did not mean to kill him."
Everything belonging to the peddler was buried with him, except a
leathern bag in which was the gold he had counted in the evening, and a
small tin box fastened by a padlock, the key of which was found in his
pocket, and his silver watch, which Hannah laid aside with a thought of
the sister Elizabeth, whom he had mentioned with so much affection, and
who, he said, was to be his heir.
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