CHAPTER XXII.

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD.

"If our child lives there is hope that my wife will live?"

"A strong hope; I speak with confidence."

"And if our child dies?"

"The mother will die."

No voice was speaking in the chamber of death, but Aaron heard again these words which had passed between the doctor and himself. If the child lived the mother would live; if the child died the mother would die.

A black darkness fell upon his soul. His mind, his soul, every principle of his being, was engulfed in the one despairing thought that Rachel was doomed, that although she was sleeping peacefully before his eyes, death would be her portion when she awoke to the fact that her babe had been taken from her.

"If when she wakes all is well with the child all will be well with her."

The spiritual echo of the doctor's words, uttered but a few hours ago. He heard them as clearly as he had heard the others.

How to avert the threatened doom? How to save his Rachel's life? Prayer would not avail, or he would have flown to it instinctively. It was not that he asked himself the question, or that in his agony he doubted or believed in the efficacy of prayer. It may be, indeed, that he evaded it, for already a strange and terrible temptation was invading the fortress of his soul. To save the life of his beloved was he ready to commit a sin? What was the true interpretation of sin? A perpetrated act which would benefit one human being to the injury of another. Then if an act were perpetrated which would insure the happiness and well-doing not of one human creature but of three, and would inflict injury upon no living soul, that act was not a sin. Unmistakably not a sin. But if this were really so, wherefore the necessity for impressing it upon himself? The conviction that he was acting justly in this hour of woe--that the contemplated act was not open to doubt in a moral or religious sense--was in itself sufficient. Wherefore, then, the iteration that it was not a sin?

He could not think the matter out in the presence of Rachel and of his dead child. He stole down to his room, and gave himself up to reflection. He turned down the gas almost to vanishing point, and stood in the dark, now thinking in silence, now uttering his thoughts aloud.

A friend had come to him and begged him to receive into his household a babe, a girl, of the same age as his own babe lying dead in the room above. She was deserted, friendless, alone. All natural claims had been abandoned, and the infant was thrown upon the world, without parents, without kith or kin. Even while he believed his own child to be alive he had decided to accept the trust. Why should he hesitate now that his child was dead? It was almost like a miraculous interposition, or so he chose to present it to himself.

"Even as we spoke together," he said aloud, "my child had passed away. Even as I hesitated the messenger was urging me to accept the trust. It was as if an angel had presented himself, and said, 'The life of your beloved hangs upon the life of a babe, and the Eternal has called her child to him. Here is another to take her place. The mother will not know; she is blind, and has never seen the face of her babe, has scarcely heard its voice. To-morrow she lives or dies--it is the critical day in her existence--and whether she lives or dies rests with you, and with you alone. Science is powerless to help her in the hour of her trial; love alone will lift her into life, into joy, into happiness; and upon you lies the responsibility. It is for you to pronounce the sentence--life or death for your beloved, life or death for a good woman who, if you do not harden your heart, will shed peace and blessings upon all around her. Embrace the gift that God has offered you. Allow no small scruples to drive you from the duty of love.' Yes," cried Aaron in a louder tone, "it was as if an angel spoke. Rachel shall live."

If there was sophistry in this reasoning he did not see it; but the still, small voice whispered:

"It is a deception you are about to practice. You are about to place in your wife's arms a child that is not of her blood or yours. You are about to take a Christian babe to your heart, to rear and instruct her as if she were born in the old and sacred faith that has survived long centuries of suffering and oppression. Can you justify it?"

"Love justifies it," he answered. "The good that will spring from it justifies it. A sweet and ennobling life will be saved. My own life will be made the better for it, for without my beloved I should be lost, I should be lost!"

Again the voice: "It is of yourself you are thinking."

"And if I am?" he answered. "If our lives are so interwoven that one would be useless and broken without the other, where is the sin?"

Again the voice: "Ah, the sin! You have pronounced the word. Remember, it is a sin of commission."

"I know it," he said, "and I can justify it--and if need arise I can atone for it in the future. The child will be reared in a virtuous home, and will have a good woman for a mother. With such an example before her she cannot fail to grow into a bright and useful womanhood. I pluck her from the doubtful possibilities which might otherwise attend her; no word of reproach will ever reach her ears; she will live in ignorance of the sad circumstances of her birth. Is all this nothing? Will it not weigh in the balance?"

Again the voice: "It is much, and the child is fortunate to fall into the hands of such protectors. But, I repeat, in using these arguments you are not thinking of the child; you think only of yourself."

"It is not so," he said; "not alone of myself am I thinking. I am the arbiter of my wife's earthly destiny. Having the opportunity of rescuing her from death, what would my future life be if I stand idly by and see her die before my eyes? Do you ask of me that I shall be her executioner? The heart of the Eternal is filled with love; he bestows upon us the gift of love as our divinest consolation. He has bestowed it upon me in its sweetest form. Shall I lightly throw away the gift and do a double wrong--to the child that needs a home, to the woman whose fate is in my hands? Afflict me no longer; I am resolved, and am doing what I believe to be right in the sight of the Most High."

The voice was silent and spake no more.

Aaron turned up the gas, gathered the money which Mr. Moss had left upon the table, and quietly left the house. As he approached the Salutation Hotel, which was situated at but a short distance, he saw the light of Mr. Moss' cigar in the street. That gentleman was walking to and fro, anxiously awaiting the arrival of his friend.

"You are here, Cohen," he cried, "and the hour has barely passed! In order that absolute secrecy should be preserved I thought it best to wait outside for you. You have decided?"

"I have decided," said Aaron; "I will receive the child."

"Good, good, good," said Mr. Moss, his eyes beaming with satisfaction. "You are acting like a sensible man, and you have lifted yourself out of your difficulties. I cannot tell you how glad you make me, for I take a real interest in you, a real interest. Remain here; I will bring the babe, and we will walk together to your house. It is well wrapped up, and we will walk quickly, to protect it from the night air. I shall not be a minute."

He darted into the hotel, and soon returned, with the babe in his arms. Upon Aaron's offering to take the child from him he said gayly:

"No, no, Cohen; I am more used to carrying babies than you. When you have a dozen of them, like me, I will admit that we are equal; but not till then, not till then."

Although his joyous tones jarred upon Aaron, he made no remark, and they proceeded to Aaron's house, Mr. Moss being the loquacious one on the road.

"The woman I brought with me does not know, does not suspect, where the child is going to, so we are safe. She goes back to Portsmouth to-night; I shall remain till the morning. The baby is fast asleep. What would the world be without children? Did you ever think of that, Cohen? It would not be worth living in. A home without children--I cannot imagine it. When I see a childless woman I pity her from my heart. They try to make up for it with a cat or a dog, but it's a poor substitute, a poor substitute. If I had no children I would adopt one or two--yes, indeed. There is a happy future before this child; if she but knew, if she could speak, her voice would ring out a song of praise."

When they arrived at the house Aaron left Mr. Moss in the room below, and ran up to ascertain if Rachel had been disturbed. She had not moved since he last quitted the room, and an expression of profound peace was settling on her face. His own child lay white and still; a heavy sigh escaped him as he gazed upon the inanimate tiny form. He closed the door softly, and rejoined his friend.

"I will not stay with you, Cohen," said Mr. Moss; "you will have enough to do. To-morrow you must get a woman to assist in the house. You have the fifty pounds safe?"

Aaron nodded.

"I have some more money to give you, twenty-five pounds, three months' payment in advance of the allowance to be made to you for the rearing of the child. Here it is, and here, also, is the address of the London lawyers, who will remit to you regularly at the commencement of every quarter. I shall not leave Gosport till eleven in the morning, and if you have anything to say to me I shall be at the Salutation till that hour. Good-night, Cohen; I wish you happiness and good fortune."

Alone with the babe, who lay on the sofa, which had been drawn up to the fire, Aaron stood face to face with the solemn responsibility he had taken upon himself, and with the still more solemn deception to which he was pledged. For a while he hardly dared to uncover the face of the sleeping child, but time was precious, and he nerved himself to the necessity. He sat on the sofa, and gently removed the wrappings which had protected the child from the cold night, but had not impeded its powers of respiration.

A feeling of awe stole upon him; the child he was gazing on might have been his own dead child, so startling was the resemblance between them. There was a little hair upon the pretty head, as there was upon the head of his dead babe; it was dark, as hers was; there was a singular resemblance in the features of the children; the limbs, the feet, the little baby hands, the pouting mouth, might have been cast in the same mold. The subtle instinct of a mother's love would have enabled her to know instinctively which of the two was her own babe, but it would be necessary for that mother to be blessed with sight before she could arrive at her unerring conclusion. A father could be easily deceived, and the tender age of the children would have been an important--perhaps the chief--factor in doubt. "Surely," Aaron thought as he contemplated the sleeping babe, "this is a sign that I am acting rightly." Men less devout than he might have regarded it as a divine interposition.

The next hour was occupied in necessary details which had not hitherto occurred to him. The clothing of the children had to be exchanged. It was done; the dead was arrayed as the living, the living as the dead. Mere words are powerless to express Aaron's feelings as he performed this task, and when he placed the living, breathing babe in the bed in which Rachel lay, and took his own dead child to an adjoining room and laid it in his own bed, scalding tears ran down his cheeks. "God forgive me, God forgive me!" he murmured again and again. He knelt by Rachel's bed and buried his face in his hands. He had committed himself to the deception; there was no retreat now. For weal or woe the deed was done.

And there was so much yet to do--so much that he had not thought of! Each false step he was taking was leading to another as false as that which preceded it. But if the end justified the means--if he did not betray himself--if Rachel, awaking, suspected nothing, and heard the voice of the babe by her side, without suspecting that it was not her own, why, then, all would be well! And all through his life, to his last hour, he would endeavor to make atonement for his sin. He inwardly acknowledged it now, without attempting to gloss it over. It was a sin; though good would spring from it, though a blessing might attend it, the act was sinful.

His painful musings were arrested by a knock at the street door. With a guilty start he rose to his feet and gazed around with fear in his eyes. What did the knock portend? Was it in some dread way connected with his doings? The thought was harrowing. But presently he straightened himself, set his lips firmly, and went downstairs to attend to the summons.