Bessie's Fortune: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

And her father replied:

"Keep it until you can restore it to its rightful owner without harm to me. Elizabeth may never get it, but her heirs, some child yet unborn, may be made rich by you, one day, who knows?"

Yes, some child then unborn might one day be richer for this crime, but that did not comfort Hannah, now, and the future held no gleam of hope or happiness for her, as she put the papers, and the watch, and the gold, and the portrait, together in the tin box, and tried to think where she could hide them.

Owing to the storm, and the depth of the snow, no one visited the lonely farm-house until the Monday following the tragedy, when a neighbor came breaking through the drifts to see how it fared with Peter, who tried to appear natural as he talked of the depth of the snow, and inquired for the news, and mentally anathematized the dog Rover, who, the moment the stranger appeared, stretched himself before the bedroom door with a keen, watchful look in his eyes, as if he were on the alert and guarding the terrible secret.

And this habit, commenced that morning, was continued by the faithful creature up to the day of his death, which happened several years later. No matter where he was, whether chasing a rabbit through the woods or sleeping by the stable door, he seemed by some instinct to know when a visitor arrived, and hastened at once to his post, from which neither threats nor persuasions could dislodge him. For Hannah tried both, but when she coaxed he whined and whisked his big tail on the floor, and when she threatened he growled and showed his teeth, but staid there just the same.

The Monday night following the tragedy, Hannah was stricken down with a low, nervous fever, which lasted for weeks, and from which she arose the mere shadow of her former self. All life and vivacity had left her, and instead of a girl of fifteen she seemed like a woman of twenty-five, so quiet and reserved she became, with no color in her cheeks, no elasticity in her step, no joy in her voice, no brightness anywhere except in her large dark eyes, which shone with unusual brilliancy, and had in them always a look which puzzled and fascinated her friends, who little dreamed of what those strangely bright, beautiful eyes saw constantly before them.

Whether sleeping or waking the picture was always there, of the dead man on the floor with the blood-stains on his face, and she felt the touch of the clammy hands which she had folded upon his breast. She could not go to school again, for in her morbid state of mind to study was impossible, and so she staid at home, brooding over the past and shrinking from the future, with no companionship except that of Rover, who seemed so fully to understand and sympathize with her. Oftentimes when her work for the day was done, and she sat down listlessly upon a little seat beneath the apple tree which grew in the yard, the dog would go to her, and putting his head in her lap, gaze into her face with such a human look of pity in his eyes that her tears would fall like rain, as she wound her arms around his neck and sobbed:

"Oh, dear old Rover, you know, and you are sorry for me. What should I do without you! What shall I do when you are gone?" and the white lips would frame a prayer that Rover might be spared to her long, for without him life would be intolerable.

And yet Hannah had no foolish fancies, filled though the house was, with the image of the dead man. She did not believe in ghosts, and had no fear that the occupant of the hidden grave beneath the floor would come back to trouble her; it was rather the horror of the crime, the sin, which so oppressed her, filling her with the wildest fancies, and making her see always the dreadful word murder written everywhere upon the walls, and the blood-stains on the floor, where no trace was visible to other eyes than hers. Sometimes in the dark night, in her lonely bed beneath the roof, with the stars looking in upon her, she felt as if her brain were on fire and that she was going mad with the load of anguish and guilt, for she accused herself as equally guilty with her father, inasmuch as she had witnessed the deed and was helping him to conceal it.

"But God knows I cannot help it. I am bound with bonds I cannot break," she would cry, as she stretched her hands toward heaven in dumb supplication for pardon and peace, which came at last to the troubled spirit.