“Helen, I am certain something is very wrong with you.  Why do you not tell it out to me?”

“Hush!  Here comes my father!”

And she hurried to him, gave him her arm, and helped his feeble steps back into the house, where for some time they three remained talking together about the little chit-chat of the parish, and the news of the family, in its various ramifications, now extending year by year.  Above all, the minister like to hear and to talk about his eldest and favorite grandchild—­his name-child, too—­Alexander Cardross Bruce.

But on this subject, usually the never-ceasing topic at the Manse, Helen was for once profoundly silent.  Even when her father had dropped asleep, as in his feebleness of age he frequently did in the very midst of conversation, she sat restlessly fingering her wedding-ring, and another which she wore as a sort of guard to it, the only jewel she possessed.  It was a very large diamond, set in a plain hoop of gold.  The earl had given it to her a few months after she came back to Cairnforth, when her persistent refusal of all his offered kindnesses had almost produced a breach between them—­at least the nearest approach to a quarrel they had ever known.  She, seeing how deeply she had wounded him, had accepted this ring as a pledge of amity, and had worn it ever since—­by his earnest request—­until it had become as familiar to her finger as the one beside it.  But now she kept looking at it, and taking it off and on with a troubled air.

“I am going to ask you a strange question, Lord Cairnforth—­a rude one, if you and I were not such old friends that we do not mind any thing we say to one another.”

“Say on.”

“Is this ring of mine very valuable?”

“Rather so.”

“Worth how much?”

“You certainly are rude, Helen,” replied the earl, with a smile.  “Well, if you particularly wish to know, I believe it is worth two hundred pounds.”

“Two hundred pounds!”

“Was that so alarming?  How many times must I suggest that a man may do what he likes with his own?  It was mine—­that is, my mother’s, and I gave it to you.  I hope you are worth to me at least two hundred pounds.”

But no cheerfulness removed the settled cloud from Mrs. Bruce’s face.

“Now—­answer me—­you know, Helen, you always answer me candidly and truly, what makes you put that question about the ring?”

“Because I wished to sell it.”

“Sell it! why?”

“I want money; in fact, I must have money—­a good large sum,” said Helen, in exceeding agitation.  “And as I will neither beg, borrow, not steal, I must sell something to procure that sum, and this diamond is the only thing I have to sell.  Now you comprehend?”

“I think I do,” was the grave answer.  “My poor Helen!”

She might have held out, but the tenderness of his tone overcame her.  She turned her head away.