"Something almost as cruel, but it must be spoken. Mr. Cohen, your wife has been severely tried; the shock of the fire, the shock of her sudden blindness, coming so close upon her expected confinement, have left their effects upon her. If things take a favorable turn with her it will be imperative, in the course of the next three or four weeks--earlier if possible, and if she can be removed with safety-- that you take her to a softer climate, where she can be nursed into permanent strength. We are going to have a severe winter, and I will not answer for its effects upon her. From three or four weeks hence till the spring in a warmer atmosphere, where there are no fogs or east winds, will be of invaluable service to her, will set her up probably for many years to come. You must recognize this yourself, and if by any possibility or sacrifice you can manage it you must do so." "It is vitally necessary, doctor?" "It is, I have no hesitation in saying, vitally necessary. And now good-night, Mr. Cohen. I leave my best wishes behind me." CHAPTER XX. A MOMENTOUS NIGHT. Each day, each hour, Aaron became more anxious and troubled. In the doctor's plain speaking there was no reading between the lines, and no possible mistaking of his meaning. Aaron saw clearly what was before him, but he could not see a way out of his difficulties, nor to doing what he was told it was imperative upon him that he should do, in the happy event of Rachel's coming safely through her present crisis. There was no apparent change in her; she lay weak and powerless in her bed, receiving Aaron always with sweet and patient words, and nursing her child as well as her feeble state would allow her. The condition of the babe pained and troubled him. There was no indication of suffering, no querulousness in the child; it was simply that she lay supine, as though life were flowing quietly out of her. Every time Aaron crept up to the bedside and found the babe asleep he leaned anxiously over her to catch the sound of her breathing; and so faint and soft was her respiration that again and again he was smitten with a fear that she had passed away. Acutely sensitive and sensible now of every sign in his wife, it became with him an absolute conviction that the doctor spoke the truth when he declared that her life and the life of her babe were inseparable--that if one lived the other would live, that if one died the other would die. During this torturing time strange thoughts oppressed him, and oppressed him more powerfully because he scarcely understood them. The tenor of these thoughts resolved itself into the one burning desire to do something to keep his wife with him even if she should lose her babe, but toward the accomplishment of this he felt that he could do nothing. He was but an instrument; if he were to be successful in steering his beloved to a haven of peace and health it must be through outside influences which up to the present were not visible to him.