“Of course, Helen, I could pass you over, and leave all direct to that young man of yours, who is, if I died intestate, my rightful heir.  But I will not—­at least, not yet.  Perhaps, if I live to see him of age, I may think about making him take my name, as Bruce-Montgomerie.  But meanwhile I shall educate him, send him to school and college, and at home he shall be put under Malcolm’s care, and have ponies to ride and boats to row.  In short, Helen,” concluded the earl, looking earnestly in her face with that sad, fond, and yet peaceful expression he had, “I mean your boy to do all that I could not do, and to be all that I ought to have been.  You are satisfied?”

“Yes—­quite.  I thank you.  And I thank God.”

A minute more, and the carriage stopped at the wicket-gate of the Manse garden.

There stood the minister, with his white locks bared, and his whole figure trembling with agitation, but still himself—­stronger and better than he had been for many months.

“Papa! papa!” And Helen, his own Helen, was in his arms.

“Drive on,” said Lord Cairnforth, hurriedly; “Malcolm, we will go straight to the Castle now.”

And so, no one heeding him—­they were too happy to notice any thing beyond themselves—­the earl passed on, with a strange smile, not of this world at all, upon his quiet face, and returned to his own stately and solitary home.

Chapter 14

Good Mrs. Campbell had guessed truly that from this time forward Helen Bruce would be only a mother.  Either she was one of those women in whom the maternal element predominates—­who seem born to take care of other people and rarely to be taken care of themselves—­or else her cruel experience of married life had forever blighted in her all wifely emotions—­even wifely regrets.  She was grave, sad, silent, for many months during her early term of widowhood, but she made no pretense of extravagant sorrow, and, except under the rarest and most necessary circumstances, she never even named her husband.  Nothing did she betray about him, or her personal relations with him, even to her nearest and dearest friends.  He had passed away, leaving no more enduring memory than the tomb-stone which Lord Cairnforth had erected in Grayfriars’ church-yard.

—–­Except his child, of whom it was the mother’s undisguised delight that, outwardly and inwardly, the little fellow appeared to be wholly a Cardross.  With his relatives on the father’s side, after the one formal letter which she had requested should be written to Colonel Bruce announcing Captain Bruce’s death, Helen evidently wished to keep up no acquaintance whatever—­nay, more than wished; she was determined it should be so—­with that quiet, resolute determination which was sometimes seen in every feature of her strong Scotch face, once so girlish, but it bore tokens of what she had gone through—­of a battle from which no woman ever comes out unwounded or unscarred.