The earl did not cancel Helen’s name from his will; he let every thing stand as before her marriage; but he took the most sedulous care to secure her fortune unalienably to herself and her offspring.  This, because, if Captain Bruce were honest, such precaution could not affect him in the least:  man and wife are one flesh—­settlements were a mere form, which love would only smile at, and at which any honorable man must be rather glad of than otherwise.  But if her husband were dishonorable, Helen was made safe, so far as worldly matters went—­ safe, except for the grief from which, alas! no human friend can protect another—­a broken heart!

Was her heart broken or breaking?

The earl could not tell nor even guess.  She left them at home not a loophole whereby to form a conjecture.  Her letters came regularly, from January until May, dated from all sorts of German towns, chiefly gambling towns; but the innocent dwellers at Cairnforth (save the earl) did not know this fact.  They were sweet, fond letters as ever—­ mindful, with a pathetic minuteness, of every body and every thing at the dear old home; but not a complaint was breathed—­not a murmur of regret concerning her marriage.  She wrote very little of her husband; gradually, Lord Cairnforth fancied, less and less.  They had not been to the south of France, as was ordered by the physicians, and intended.  He preferred, she said, these German town, where he met his own family—­ his father and sisters.  Of these, as even the minister himself at length noticed with surprise, Helen gave no description, favorable or otherwise; indeed, did not say of her husband’s kindred, beyond the bare fact that she was living with them, one single word.

Eagerly the earl scanned her letters—­those long letters, which Mr. Cardross brought up immediately to the Castle and then circulated their contents round the whole parish with the utmost glee and pride; for the whole parish was in its turn dying to hear news of “Miss Helen.”  Still, nothing could be discovered of her real life and feelings.  And at last her friend’s fever of uneasiness calmed down a little; he contented himself with still keeping a constant watch over all her movements—­ speaking to no one, trusting no one, except so far as he was obliged to trust the old clerk who was once sent down by Mr. Menteith, and who had now come to end his days at Cairnforth, in the position of the earl’s private secretary—­as faithful and fond as a dog, and as safely silent.

So wore the time away, as it wears on with all of us, through joy and sorrow, absence or presence, with cheerful fullness or aching emptiness of heart.  It brought spring back, and summer—­the sunshine to the hills, and the leaves, and flowers, and birds to the woods; it brought the earl’s birthday—­kept festively as ever by his people, who loved him better every year; but it did not bring Helen home to Cairnforth.

Chapter 12