And again, the instant she mentioned her son’s name, she gave way to tears.  Yet all the while her friend saw that she was very hard, and bent upon being hard; that, had Cardross appeared before her at that minute, she would immediately have frozen up again into the stern mother whose confidence had been betrayed, whose principles infringed, and who, though loving her son with all the strength of her heart, could also punish him with all the power of her conscience, even though her heart was breaking with sorrow the while.

“I will give you the best advice I can.  But, first, let me have his letter again.”

Lord Cairnforth read it slowly over, Mrs. Bruce’s eager eyes watching him, and then suffered her to take it from his helpless hands, and fold it up, tenderly, as mothers do.

“What do you think of it?”

“Exactly what I did this morning—­that your boy has been very foolish, but not wicked.  There is no attempt at deception or untruthfulness.

“No, thank God!  Whatever else he is, my son is not a liar.  I have prevented or conquered that.”

“Yes, because you brought him up, as your father brought us up, to be afraid of nothing, to speak out our minds to him without fear of offending him, to stand in no dread of rousing his anger, but only of grieving his love.  And so, you see, Helen, it is the same with your boy.  He never attempts to deceive you.  He tells out, point-blank, the most foolish things he has done—­the most ridiculous expenses he has run into.  He may be extravagant, but he is not untruthful.  I have no doubt, if I sent this list to his trades-people, they would verify every halfpenny, and that this really is the end of the list.  Not such a long list neither, if you consider.  Below two hundred pounds for which you were going to sell my ring.”

“Were going!  I shall do it still.”

“If you will; though it seems a pity to part with a gift of mine, when the sum is a mere nothing to me, with my large income, which, Helen, will one day be all yours.”

Helen was silent—­a little sorry and ashamed.  The earl talked with her till he had succeeded in calming her and bringing her into her natural self again—­able to see things in their right proportions, and take just views of all.

“Then you will trust me?” she said at last.  “You think I may be depended upon to do nothing rashly when I go to Edinburg to-morrow?”

“My dear, I have no intention of letting you go.”

“But some one must go.  Something must be done, and I can not trust Alick to do it.  My brother does not understand my boy,” said she, returning to her restless, helpless manner.  She, the helpful Helen, only weak in this one point—­her only son.

“Something has been done.  I have already sent for Cardross.  He will be at the Castle to-morrow.”

Helen started.

“At the Castle, I said, not the Manse.  No, Helen, you shall not be compromised; you may be as severe as you like with your son.  But he is my son too”—­and a faint shade of color passed over the earl’s withered cheeks—­“my adopted son, and it is time that he should know it.”