cate and difficult a mission,
for which he pronounced himself utterly unfit. But the pathetic appeal of
the dark, hollow eyes, which gleamed upon him from the pillow, ultimately
prevailed.

"Tell her," said Jack, as "Cobbler" Horn wished him good night, "that I
dare not ask pardon of God, till I have her forgiveness from her own
lips."

In a village almost English in its rural loveliness "Cobbler" Horn found
himself, the next morning, face to face, in the little front-room of a
humble cottage, with a pale, sorrowful maiden, on whose
pensively-beautiful face hope and fear mingled their lights and shadows
while he delivered his tender message.

"Would she go with him?"

"Go?" she exclaimed, with trembling eagerness, "of course I will! But how
good it is of you, sir--a stranger, to come like this!"

So Bertha Norman came back with "Cobbler" Horn to the private hospital in
New York. He put her into her cousin's room, closed the door, and then
quietly came downstairs. Bertha did not notice that her conductor had
withdrawn. She flew to the bedside. The dying man put out a trembling
hand.

"Forgive----" he began in broken tones.

But she stifled his words with gentle kisses, and, sitting down by the
bed, clasped his poor thin hand.

"Ask God to forgive you, dear Jack. I've never stopped loving you a bit!"

"Yes, I will ask God that," he said. "I can now. But I want to tell you
something first, Bertha. I am a rich man."

Then he told her the wonderful story.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, "that was your friend who brought me here. I felt
that he was good."

"He is," said Jack. "And now Bertha, it's all yours. I've made my will,
and the money is to come to you when I'm gone. You know I'm going,
Bertha?"

She tightened the grasp of her hand on his with a convulsive movement,
but did not speak.

"It 'ull be your very own, Bertha," he said.

"Yes, thank you, dear Jack. But forgive me, if I don't think much about
that just now."

Then there was a brief silence, which was presently broken by Jack.

"You won't leave me, yet, Bertha? You'll stay with me a little while?"

"Jack I shall never leave you any more!" and there was a world of love
in her gentle eyes.

"Thank God!" murmured the dying man. "Till----till----you mean?"

"Yes; but, Jack, you must come back to God!"

"Yes, I will. But call cousin Thomas in."

She found "the Golden Shoemaker" in a small sitting-room downstairs; and,
having brought him up to the