"You have something to say to me, nurse, about my wife."
"Yes, Mr. Cohen, I have," she replied, "and I am glad you have mentioned it, as I did not know how to bring it out." She paused again.
"I think you ought to know, Mr. Cohen, that your wife is not so well as you suppose."
"She keeps it from you, sir, and has begged me not to alarm you, but it is my duty. No, sir, she is far from well, and is not getting on as she ought. She grows weaker and weaker--and baby, too, is not thriving. It is that which keeps Mrs. Cohen back."
"What can be done, nurse?" asked Aaron, the agony of his feelings depicted on his countenance.
"It isn't for me to say, Mr. Cohen. If I were you I would ask the doctor to tell me plainly."
"I will, I will. Nurse, does she suffer?"
"She's just the one to suffer, sir, and to say nothing. It would be a dreadful thing for you, sir, if----" But here the woman stopped suddenly and bit her lip. She had said more than she intended. "Good-day, sir, and I hope we may all be wrong."
He caught her arm. "No, no, nurse. I will ask the doctor to speak plainly to me, but he will not be here till to-morrow, and I cannot go to him and leave my wife and child alone in the house. Finish what you were about to say. 'It would be a dreadful thing if----'"
"Well, sir, it is best to face the truth. If your poor lady was to die."
"I am afraid there is, sir. Don't take on so, sir, don't! I am sorry I spoke."
"You have done what is right," Aaron groaned.
"We must all of us be prepared, sir; trouble comes to all of us."
"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.