, that it had never been there,
and it was so real I wanted to see. I thought I'd get done before you
came, but it was so hard. I cannot get the boards up. But you can do it;
go down on your knees and take the floor up just this once. I'll never
ask it again. It was thirty-one years ago to-night, and when it is
thirty-two I shall be dead. Go down, Hannah, I want to know if it is
there still, the horror I have slept over every night for thirty-one
long years."

"No, father," Hannah answered, firmly. "Ask me anything but that. Be
satisfied that it _is_ there. Who should take it away, when no one knows
but ourselves? Get into bed, father; you are shivering with cold."

Like a conquered child the old man obeyed her and crept into bed, while
she drew the blankets around him, and then stooping down in the dark
corner she drove the loosened board to its place, shuddering as she did
so and experiencing a feeling of terror such as she had not felt before
in years. Pushing the bed back to its usual position, she sat down by
her father and tried to quiet him, for he was strangely restless, and
talked of, things which made the blood curdle in her veins.

"Hark!" he exclaimed, as a gust of wind went shrieking past the window.
"What was that, Hannah, that sound like a human cry?"

"It was only the wind. A wild storm is sweeping over the hills
to-night," she said, as she drew a little nearer to him and took his
hand in hers as if to give herself courage, for she, too, fancied there
was in the wailing wind the echo of a cry she never could forget.

"Yes," the old man replied, "just such a storm as shook the house
thirty-one years ago to-night, and above it all I hear Rover's howl and
the awful word you shouted aloud and which the winds caught up and
carried everywhere so that the world is full of it. Do you remember it,
Hannah!"

Did she remember it. Ask rather could she ever forget the awful word
which it seemed to her was written on the very walls and doors of the
house, and on her forehead where all the world might see it!

Ask her if she remembered, when even now, after the lapse of thirty-one
years, she could hear so distinctly the shriek of despair, which, as her
father had said, the winds had caught up and carried over the hills and
far away, where it was still repeating itself over and over again, and
would go on forever until reparation were made, if that were possible
now.

It was always ringing in her ears, just as