He gathered his papers, arranged them in order, and put them in his pocket. He dallied with them at first, but feeling that he was prolonging the simple task in order to shorten the time for serious thought, he smiled pitifully at his weakness, and completed it expeditiously. In admitting Ruth into his household, in adopting her as a daughter he had undertaken a sacred responsibility. He was fully conscious of this twenty years ago in Gosport, and what he had done had been done deliberately. It was a question then of the sacrifice of a precious life. The doctor had stated the case very clearly. The pregnant words they had exchanged were in his memory now, and might have been spoken only a few moments since. "Her life," the doctor had said, "hangs upon the life of her child." "If our child lives," Aaron had asked, "there is hope that my wife will live?" "A strong hope," the doctor had answered. "And if our child dies?" asked Aaron. The doctor answered, "The mother will die." He recalled the agony of those hours, the sufferings through which Rachel had passed with so much sweetness and patience, his poverty and helplessness, the dark future before him. Then came the ray of light, Mr. Moss, with the strange commission of the deserted child. He had not courted it, had not invited it; he had had no hand in it. He had regarded it as a message from heaven. What followed? The death of his own babe, the calm and peaceful death, the young soul taken to heaven, his beloved wife in an untroubled sleep by the side of her dead babe. It was a visitation of God. Could he be accused of having had a hand in it? Heaven forbid! On the contrary, who could blame him for believing that it was a Divine direction of the course he was to take? And who was wronged? Surely not the mother who had deserted her babe. Surely not the babe, who had found a happy home. The wrong--and herein was the sting--was to Rachel, whose life had been saved by the deceit. So far, then, was he not justified? But if, before the committal of a sin, we could see the consequences of the sin--if he had seen the consequences of his, would he not have paused, and said, "It rests with God; let it be as He wills; I will be no party to the deceit"? In that case Rachel's life would have been sacrificed. There was no human doubt of it. Rachel would have died, and the blessings she had shed around her, the good she had been enabled to do, the suffering hearts she had relieved, the light she had brought into despairing homes, would never have been. Against a little evil, so much good. Against a slight error, so much that was sweet and beautiful. But in these reflections he had taken into account only Rachel and himself--only their two lives. How about Ruth herself?