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God may forgive me. I think he will, but I can never join his church
with this crime on my soul."
After this Hannah said no more to him upon the subject, but bent all her
energies to soothe and rid him of the morbid, half-crazy fancies which
had taken possession of him.
And so the wretched years went on, until Peter Jerrold had numbered more
than three score years and ten, and suffered enough to atone many times
for crimes far more heinous than his had been. But nature at last could
endure no more, and on the Thanksgiving night, thirty-one years after
the event which had blighted his life, he felt that he was dying, and
insisted upon confessing his sin not only to his son, but also to his
clergyman, who has been his friend and spiritual adviser for so many
years.
"I shall die so much easier," he said to Hannah, who sent for them both,
and then with her arm around her father, held him against her bosom,
while he told in substance, and with frequent pauses for breath, the
story we have narrated.


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