The passionate voice grew faint and ceased. Then the loving little heart burst in the boyish bosom, and Bobbie's angels bore away his young soul to another world where blindness is not,--where his uplifted being would understand that the stars he'd loved,--the stars he'd gathered in his small, unseeing head,--were but a reflection of those in God's firmament. With one final quiver he straightened out in his father's arms and was silent. All his loves and sorrows were in the eternal yesterdays, and to-day had delivered him into the charge of Lafe's angels. Jinnie was crying hysterically, and her father's dying curse upon her uncle leapt into her mind. She was clinging to the cobbler, and both had moved to Peg, where the woman sat as if turned to stone. Not a person in the courtroom stirred. In consternation the jury sat in their chairs like graven images, taking in the freshly wrought tragedy with tense expressions. The judge, too, leaned forward in his chair, watching. Jordan Morse faced the room, with its silent, observant crowd, pressing to his breast the dead body of his child. Then he turned to Lafe, white, twitching, and suffering. "I shot Maudlin Bates," he said, haltingly; then turning to the jury he continued: "The cobbler's an innocent man----" A menacing groan fell from a hundred lips at his words. He deliberately took from his hip pocket a revolver, lifted the weapon and finished: "I'm--I'm sorry, Jinnie, I'm----" Then came the sharp, short bark of the gun, and the bullet found a path to his brain. He staggered, frantically clutching the slender body of Bobbie closer--and toppled over. CHAPTER XLVIII FOR BOBBIE'S SAKE Lafe's homecoming was one of solemn rejoicing. The only shadow hanging over the happy family was the absence of Blind Bobbie, who now lay by the side of his dead father. After the first greetings, Lafe took his boy baby and pressed him gratefully to his heart. "He's beautiful, Peggy dear, ain't he?" he implored, drinking in with affectionate, fatherly eyes the rosy little face. "Wife darlin', make a long story short an' tell me he's beautiful." Mrs. Grandoken eyed her husband sternly. "Lafe," she admonished, "you're as full of brag as a egg is of meat, and salt won't save you. All your life you've boasted till I thought the world'd come to an end, an' I ain't never said a word against it. Now you can't teach me none of your bad habits, because I won't learn 'em, so don't try." She paused, her lips lifting a little at the corners, and went on: "But I'm tellin' you with my own lips there ain't a beautifuller baby in this county'n this little feller, nor one half so beautiful! So there's my mind, sir." "'Tis so, dear," murmured the cobbler, rejoicing. About five o'clock in the afternoon, while Peggy was uptown replenishing the slender larder and Lafe and Jinnie were alone with the baby, there came a timid knock.