"Dear love, dear love," she said, "my heart bleeds for you! Ah, how you must have suffered! Be strong, dear husband, and tell me all. I am prepared--indeed, indeed I am!" In hushed and solemn tones he told her of the death of their offspring, of the desperate temptation that assailed him, of his yielding to it, of the transposition of the babes, and of his agony and joy as he watched her when she awoke and pressed the stranger to her breast. "By my sin you were saved," he said. "By your agony was I saved," she murmured, and still retained and fondled his hand while the tears ran down her face. But love was there in its divinest aspect, and tenderest pity; and thus fortified, he continued to the end, and waited for the verdict that was to mar or make his future. He had not long to wait. Rachel held him close in her embrace, and mingled her tears with his. "Can you forgive me, Rachel?" "It is for me to bless, not to forgive," she sobbed. "For me you strayed, for me you have suffered. Comfort his bruised heart, O all-merciful God, who sees and judges! And, Aaron, dear and honoured husband, we have still a son to bless our days!" CHAPTER XLV. A POISONED ARROW. Had it not been that public attention was directed mainly to events of greater importance Aaron Cohen's affairs would have furnished a liberal theme for the busy hunters of sensational and personal journalism, but to a certain extent he was protected by the fever of the financial panic in which numbers of unfortunate families were caught and ruined, and the fortunes of famous historic houses imperilled. He would have been grateful to slip into obscurity unnoticed, but this could scarcely be expected. He had occupied too high a station to be passed over in complete silence, and he had one bitter enemy, Mr. Poynter, who rejoiced in his downfall and neglected no opportunity to wing a poisoned arrow against his old rival. This man was furious with disappointment at having been unable to secure his rival's contracts, and when the excitement of the panic was over these arrows became more numerous, and Aaron's name was frequently mentioned in a slighting manner in those second- and third-class journals whose columns are too freely open to personal spite and malice. He saw but few of the paragraphs in which he was attacked, and those he read did not wound him; they made his friends angry (for he was not deserted by all), and they urged him to reply to them; but he shook his head, and said, "I shall not assist my enemies to stir up muddy waters. To every word I wrote they would reply with twelve. Let them do their worst." He was, however, greatly concerned lest the slanders should reach Rachel's knowledge; and here her blindness aided him. Either he or the faithful Prissy was ever by her side, and if his traducers hoped to make him suffer through the being whose love was the most precious jewel in his life, they were doomed to