midnight
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 . After the first great shock of surprise , when the word murderer dropped from his lips , and he reproached his sister so harshly and unreasonably , Burton Jerrold stood with folded arms , and a gloomy , unsympathetic face , as immovable at first as if he had been a stone , and listened to the tale as repeated by his father . But when the tragic part was reached , and he saw the dead man on the floor , his sister crouching in the corner of the room , with Rover at her side , the rude coffin , the open grave , and the secret midnight burial , his breath came in long , shuddering gasps , and the perspiration stood in great drops upon his forehead and about his pallid lips . And when his father said , `` I buried him here in this room , under this bed , where I have slept ever since , and he is there now , '' he started backward as suddenly as if the ghost of the peddler had risen from the floor and confronted him . Then , staggering forward , he would have fallen if Mr. Sanford had not caught him by the arm and supported him a moment . Bringing him a chair , the clergyman said to him , pityingly : `` Sit down , Mr. Jerrold , and try to compose yourself .