t only her own, but their natural
enemy.

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 th