"Alas, it is a human heritage! But you do not know what this means to me--you do not know what it means to me!"
"Perhaps I have made things out worse than they are; I hope so, I am sure. But you ask the doctor, sir, and don't give way. I shall think of your lady a good deal when I am gone."
With that, and with a sympathetic look at him, the woman departed.
At length, at length, the truth had been spoken; at length, at length, he knew the worst. It was as if a sentence of death had been pronounced. His Rachel, his beloved wife, the tenderest, the truest that man had ever been blessed with, was to be taken from him. His child, also, perhaps; but that was a lesser grief, upon which he had no heart to brood. His one overwhelming anxiety was for Rachel, who, as it now seemed to him, was lying at death's door in the room above.
He had some soup ready, and he took a basin up to her.
"Can you drink this, dear?"
"I will try."
He assisted her to rise, and put a pillow at her back. As he fed her he watched her face, and he saw that it had grown wan and thin. It was well for both of them that she could not see him; the sight of his agony would have deepened her sufferings and added to his own. With wonderful control he spoke to her with some semblance of cheerfulness, and his voice and words brought a smile to her lips. So through the day he ministered to her, and every time he left her room his fears grew stronger. He did not expect the doctor till the following day, and was surprised when he made his appearance at nightfall.
"I happened to be passing," he said to Aaron, "and I thought I would drop in to see how you are getting along."
When they came down from the sick-room Aaron observed a graver expression on his face.