It was nearly midnight when they stood at the foot of the high stair—­ six stories high—­and Captain Bruce, they learned, was inhabiting the topmost flat.  Malcolm looked at the earl uneasily.

“The top flat!  Miss Helen canna be vera well aff, I doubt.  Will I gang up and see, my lord”?

“No, I will go myself.  Carry me, Malcolm.”

And, in the old childish way, the big Highlander lifted his master up in his arms, and carried him, flight after flight, to the summit of the long dark stair.  It narrowed up to a small door, very mean and shabby-looking, from the keyhole of which, when Malcolm hid his lantern, a light was seen to gleam.

“They’re no awa’ to their beds yet, my lord.  Will I knock?”

Lord Cairnforth had no time to reply, if indeed he could have replied; for Malcolm’s footsteps had been heard from within, and opening the door with an eager “Is that you, doctor?” there stood before them, in her very own likeness, Helen Cardross.

At least a woman like enough to the former Helen to leave no doubt it was herself.  But a casual acquaintance would never have recognized her.

The face, once so round and rosy, was sharp and thin; the cheek-bones stood out; the bright complexion was faded; the masses of flaxen curls —­her chief beauty—­were all gone; and the thin hair was drawn up close under a cap.  Her dress, once the picture of neatness, was neat still, but the figure had become gaunt and coarse, and the shabby gown hung upon her in forlorn folds, as if put on carelessly by one who had neither time nor thought to give to appearances.

She was evidently sitting up watching, and alone.  The rooms which her door opened to view were only two, this topmost flat having been divided in half, and each half made into just “a but and a ben,” and furnished in the meanest fashion of lodgings to let.

“Is it the doctor?” she said again, shading her light and peering down the dark stair.

“Helen!”

She recognized at once the little figure in Malcolm’s arms.

“You—­you!  And you have come to me—­come your own self!  Oh, thank God!”

She leant against the doorway—­not for weeping; she looked like one who had wept till she could weep no more, but breathing hard in heavy breaths, like sobs.

“Set me down, Malcolm, somewhere—­any where.  Then go outside.”

Malcolm obeyed, finding a broken arm-chair and settling his master therein.  Then, as he himself afterward told the story, though not till many years after, when nothing he told about that dear master’s concerns could signify any more, he “gaed awa’ doun and grat like a bairn.”

Lord Cairnforth sat silent, waiting till Helen had recovered herself—­ Helen, whom, however changed, he would have known among a thousand.  And then, with his quick observation, he took in as much of her circumstances as was betrayed by the aspect of the room, evidently kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom in one; for at the far end, close to the door that opened into the second apartment, which seemed a mere closet, was one of those concealed beds so common in Scotland, and on it lay a figure which occasionally stirred, moaned, or coughed, but very feebly, and for the most part lay still—­very still.