“I do believe Lord Cairnforth is come home!”

“Ou ay, Miss Helen,” said Duncan, the ferryman, “his lordship crossed wi’ me the day; an’ I’m thinking, minister,” added the old man confidentially, “that ye suld just gang up to the Castle an’ see him; for it’s ma opinion that the earl’s come back as he gaed awa, nae better and nae waur.”

“What makes you thinks so?  Did he say any thing?”

“Ne’er a word but just ‘How are ye the day, Duncan?’ and he sat and glowered at the hills and the loch, and twa big draps rolled down his puir bit facie—­it’s grown sae white and sae sma’, ye ken—­and I said, ’My lord, it’s grand to see your lordship back.  Ye’ll no be gaun to London again, I hope?’ ‘Na, na,’ says he; ’na, Duncan, I’m best at hame—­best at hame!’ And when Malcolm lifted him, he gied a bit skreigh, as if he’d hurted himself—­Minister, I wish I’d thae London doctors here by our loch side,” muttered Duncan between his teeth, and pulling away fiercely at his oar; but the minister said nothing.

He and Helen went silently home, and finding no message, walked on as silently up to the Castle together.

Chapter 6

Old Duncan’s penetration had been correct—­the difficult and painful London journey was all in vain.  Lord Cairnforth had returned home neither better nor worse than he was before; the experiment had failed.

Helen and her father guessed this from their first sight of him, though they had found him sitting as usual in his arm-chair at his favorite corner, and when they entered the library he had looked up with a smile —­the same old smile, as natural as though he had never been away.

“Is that you, Mr. Cardross?  Helen too?  How kind of you to come and see me so soon!”

But, in spite of his cheerful greeting, they detected at once the expression of suffering in the poor face—­“sae white and sae sma’,” as Duncan had said; pale beyond its ordinary pallor, and shrunken and withered like an old man’s; the more so, perhaps, as the masculine down had grown upon cheek and chin, and there was a matured manliness of expression in the whole countenance, which formed a strange contrast to the still puny and childish frame—­alas!  Not a whit less helpless or less distorted than before.  Yes, the experiment had failed.

They were so sure of this, Mr. Cardross and his daughter, that neither put to him a single question on the subject, but instinctively passed it over, and kept the conversation to all sorts of commonplace topics:  the journey—­the wonders of London—­and the small events which had happened in quiet Cairnforth during the three months that the earl had been away.

Lord Cairnforth was the first to end their difficulty and hesitation by openly referring to that which neither of his friends could bear to speak of.

“Yes,” he said, at last, with a faint, sad smile, “I agree with old Duncan—­I never mean to go to London any more.  I shall stay for the rest of my days among my own people.”