“Hospital—­young man—­gold watch!” ejaculated Agnes in a disjointed way, as she took the letter.

A glance at the handwriting was sufficient, and her face grew deadly white as she opened and read: 

“Agnes—­Angel Agnes, I hear they call you—­and they may well call you that—­darling, I found out the trick by which we were estranged.  I was foolish, I was wrong to treat you so.  And when I learned you had come here into this pest-hole, I was crazy with anxiety for fear you would take the fever and die.  I did not know how I did love you till then.  God forgive me, guilty wretch that I am, for driving you to such a desperate piece of romance.  I came here to tell you how sorry I was, and to ask you to take me bask to my old place in your heart.  But now I am afraid it is too late.  I have been hanging around the town a week or longer, trying to get in on some train.  Not succeeding in my object this way, I have been obliged to walk in by night, concealing myself in the daytime, and walking forward again in the darkness.  Thus I have eluded them, and got in.  But so far I have been unable to find you, and now I fear it too late, for I am sick with the fever in the hospital.

“I have given myself up to die, for they are not especially kind or attentive to me, as they think I ought to have stayed away, and not come in and added to their labors, as they have more of their own sick than they can attend to.

“O Agnes, what I would give just to see you before I die, just to hear your voice!  But this is a judgment upon me for the way I have treated you.  Perhaps you are dead too.  If so, then I shall meet you very soon in the other world.  If you are not dead, and you get this letter, then, for the sake of the olden times, don’t hold any malice toward me, but forgive me in my grave.  I have given my watch and some money to the nurse here, to get him to give you this letter.  I would like you, to buy it from him and send it, if possible, to mother, for it belonged to my father.  Good by, Agnes, good-by.  Meet me in heaven. 
          
                                              George.”

The tears were running down the pale face of Miss Arnold, and the dead-wagon man was in a perfect fever of excitement, but he did not speak till she raised her eyes from the letter, when he spluttered out: 

“Lor’ bless you, Missus Agonyness, I hope there ain’t no Yaller Jeck in that there letter.  But you looks orful sick.”

“I want to go to where you got this letter at once.”

“All right, Missus Agonyness, I’ll drive slower nor usual, and go back on my route, an’ you ken foller the wagon.  I’d let yer ride, but there aint room.”

Next door there was a Sister of Mercy nursing, and Agnes asked her to look in at her patient till she could return herself, and then she set out for the hospital where George was lying sick.

Soon arriving there, she went immediately to the nurse and ordered him to give her the gold watch George had given him, which he did very quickly.  Then she ordered the nurse to take her instantly to the bedside of the young man.  This he did with reluctance, evidently because he was ashamed of the way in which the patient was being treated.  Leading Agnes to the darkest end of a small room in which were a number of sick, he showed her George Harkness.