'I cannot,' answered Stephen; 'I'm only a poor lad, and I don't know how
to do it up loud. Miss Anne will pray for thee.'
'If you have forgiven me, pray to God for me,' murmured the master,
opening his eyes again with a look of deep entreaty. Over Stephen's pale
face a smile was kindling, a smile of pure, intense love and faith, and
the light in his pitying eyes met the master's dying gaze with a gleam
of strengthening hope. He clasped the cold hand in both his own, and,
kneeling down beside him, he prayed from his very soul, 'Lord, lay not
this sin to his charge.'
He could say no more; and Miss Anne, who knelt by him, was silent,
except that one sob burst from her lips. The master stirred no more, but
lay still, with his numb and paralyzed hand in Stephen's clasp; but in a
few minutes he uttered these words, in a tone of mingled entreaty and
assertion, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!'
That was all. An hour or two afterwards it was known throughout
Longville, and the news was on the way to Botfield, that the master of
Botfield works was dead.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE HOME RESTORED.
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