he must have it. He always threatened that he'd get it. He wad
have made mischief wi' it somehow."

Mrs. Garth spoke in whispers, but her voice broke her son's restless
sleep. Garth was sinking fast, but he looked quieter when his eyes
opened again. "I think God has forgiven me my great crime," he said
calmly, "for the sake of the merciful Saviour, who would not condemn
the woman that was a sinner."

Then he crooned over the Quaker hymn,--

Though your sins be red as scarlet,
He shall wash them white as wool.

Infinitely touching was it to hear his poor, feeble, broken voice
spend its last strength so.

"Sing to me, Rotha," he said, pausing for breath.

"Yes, Joe. What shall I sing?"

"Sing 'O Lord, my God,'" he answered. And then, over the murmuring
voice of the river, above the low wail of the rising wind, the girl's
sweet, solemn voice, deep with tenderness and tears, sang the simple
old hymn,--

O Lord, my God,
A broken heart
Is all my part:
Spare not Thy rod,
That I may prove
Therein Thy love.

"Ey, ey," repeated Garth, "a broken heart is _all_ my part."

Very tremulous was the voice of the singer as she sang,--

O Lord, my God,
Or ere I die,
And silent lie
Beneath the sod,
Do Thou make whole
This bruised soul.

"This bruised soul," murmured the blacksmith.

Rotha had stopped, and buried her face in her hands.

"There's another verse, Rotha; there's another verse."

But the singer could sing no more. Then the dying man himself sang in
his feeble voice, and with panting breath,--

Dear Lord, my God--
Weary and worn,
Bleeding and torn--
Spare now Thy rod.
Sorely distressed--
Lord, give me rest.

There was a bright light in his eyes. And surely victory was his at
last. The burden was cast off forever. "Lord, give me rest," he
murmured again, and the tongue that uttered the prayer spoke no more.

Rotha took his hand. His pulse sank--slower, slower, slower. His end
was like the going out of a lamp--down, down, down--then a fitful
flicker--and then--

Death, the merciful mediator; Death, the Just Judge; Death, the
righter of the wronged; Death was here--here!

Mrs. Garth's grief was uncontrollable. The hard woman was as nerveless
as a baby now. Yet it was not at first that she would accept the
evidence of her senses. Reaching over the bed, she half raised the
b