“Under the bed!” Hannah repeated, while a cold sweat oozed from every pore.  “He must be crazy!  But do not come with me to his room; it would make him worse.  I can manage him alone; but please make a fire in the summer kitchen and stay there this evening.  Father seems to know when any one is in the next room and it troubles him.”

“Yes-m,” the boy replied, thinking it a very strange freak that the old man would allow no one with him except his daughter.

But Sam was neither quick nor suspicious, and glad of any change from the cold wood-shed, he started to kindle a fire in the room adjoining, which in summer was used for a kitchen, while Hannah, lighting a candle, hastened to the door of her father’s room, which she found locked, while from within she heard labored breathing, and a sound like tugging at a board which evidently offered resistance.

“Father,” she cried, in terror, “let me in!  It is I, Hannah, and Sam is in the wood-shed.”

After a moment the key was turned and Hannah stepped inside, locking the door after her.

In the middle of the floor her father stood, with his long white hair falling around his corpse-like face and his eyes bright with the excitement of delirium.  The bed was moved toward the center of the room and in the farthest corner a board of the floor had been partially removed.

“What are you doing?” Hannah asked, advancing quickly to her father.

“Oh, Hannah,” the old man said, whimperingly; “I did so want to be sure that it was there.  I dreamed it was gone, 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.