But, though life’s joys were forbidden him, its duties seemed to accumulate daily.  There was Mr. Cardross to be kept patient by the assurance that all was well, and that presently his daughter and his grandchild would be coming home.  There was Alick Cardross, now a young clerk in the office of Menteith & Ross, to be looked after, and kept from agitating his sister by any questionings; and there was a tribe of young Menteiths always needing assistance or advice—­now and then something more tangible than advice.  Then there were the earl’s Edinburg friends, who thronged round him in hearty welcome as soon as ever they heard he was again in the good old city, and would willingly have drawn him back again into that brilliant society which he had enjoyed so much.

He enjoyed it still—­a little; and during the weeks that elapsed before Helen was able to travel, or do any thing but lie still and be taken care of, he found opportunity to mingle once more among his former associates.  But his heart was always in that quiet room which he only entered once a day, where the newly-made widow sat with her orphan child at her bosom, and waited for Time, the healer, to soothe and bind up the inevitable wounds.

At last the day arrived when the earl, with his little cortege of two carriages, one his own, and the other containing Helen, her baby, and Mrs. Campbell, quitted Edinburg, and, traveling leisurely, neared the shores of Loch Beg.  They did not come by the ferry, Lord Cairnforth having given orders to drive round the head of the loch, as the easiest and most unobtrusive way of bringing Helen home.  Much he wondered how she bore it—­the sight of the familiar hills—­exactly the same—­ for it was the same time of year, almost the very day, when she had left Cairnforth; but he could not inquire.  At length, after much thought, during the last stage of the journey, he bade Malcolm ask Mrs. Bruce if she would leave her baby for a little and come into the earl’s carriage, which message she obeyed at once.

These few weeks of companionship, not constant, but still sufficiently close, had brought them back very much into their old brother and sister relation, and though nothing had been distinctly said about it, Helen had accepted passively all the earl’s generosity both for herself and her child.  Once or twice, when he had noticed a slight hesitation of uneasiness in her manner, Lord Cairnforth had said, “I promised him, you remember,” and this had silenced her.  Besides she was too utterly worn out and broken down to resist any kindness.  She seemed to open her heart to it—­Helen’s proud, sensitive, independent heart—­much as a plant, long dried up, withered, and trampled upon, opens itself to the sunshine and the dew.

But now her health, both of body and mind, had revived a little; and as she sat opposite him in her grave, composed widowhood, even the disguise of the black weeds could not take away a look that returned again and again, reminding the earl of the Helen of his childhood—­the bright, sweet, wholesome-natured, high-spirited Helen Cardross.