He could not.

This done, he waited day after day, till every chance of Helen's not
having had time to reply was long over, and still no answer came. That
the letter had been received was more than probable, almost certain.
Every possible interpretation that common sense allowed Lord Cairnforth
gave to her silence, and all failed. Then he let the question rest. To
distrust her, Helen, his one pure image of perfection, was impossible.
He felt it would have killed him--not his outer life, perhaps, but
the life of his heart, his belief in human goodness.

So he still waited, nor judged her either as daughter or friend, but
contented himself with doing her apparently neglected duty for her--
making himself an elder brother to Duncan, and a son to the minister,
and never missing a day without spending some hours at the Manse.

For almost the first time since her departure, Helen's regular monthly
letter did not arrive, and the earl grew seriously alarmed. In the
utmost perplexity, he was resolving in his own mind what next step to
take--how, and how much he ought to tell of his anxieties to her
father--when all difficulties were solved in the sharpest and yet
easiest way by a letter from Helen herself--a letter so unlike
Helen's, so un-neat, blurred, and blotted, that at first he did not even
recognize it as hers.

"To the Right Honorable the Earl of Cairnforth:

"My Lord,--I have only just found your letter. The money inclosed
was not there. I conclude it had been used for our journey hither; but
it is gone, and I can not come to my dearest father. My husband is very
ill, and my little baby only three weeks old. Tell my father this, and
send me news of him soon. Help me, for I am almost beside myself with
misery!

"Yours gratefully,

"Helen Bruce

"---- Street, Edinburg."

Edinburg! Then she was come home!

The earl had opened and read the letter with his secretary sitting by
him. Yet, dull and not prone to notice things as the old man was, he
was struck by an unusual tone of something very like exultation in his
master's voice as he said,

"Mr. Mearns, call Malcolm to me; I must start for Edinburg immediately."

In the interval Lord Cairnforth thought rapidly over what was best to be
done. To go at once to Helen, whatever her misery was, appeared to him
beyond question. To take Mr. Cardross in his present state, or the lad
Duncan, was not desirable: some people, good as they may be, are not th