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.

Its face, placed straight on the pillow--and as the fire blazed up,
the sharp profile being reflected in grotesque distinctness on the wall
behind--was a man's face, thin and ghastly, the skin tightly drawn
over the features, as is seen in the last stage of consumption.

Lord Cairnforth had never beheld death--not in any form. But he
felt, by instinct, that he was looking upon it now, or the near approach
to it, in the man who lay there, too rapidly passing into
unconsciousness even to notice his presence--Helen's husband, Captain
Bruce.

The dreadful fascination of the sight drew his attention even from Helen
herself. He sat gazing at his cousin, the man who had deceived and
wronged him, and not him only, but those dearer to him than himself
---the man whom, a day or two ago, he had altogether hated and despised.
He dared do neither now. A heavier hand than that of mortal justice was
upon his enemy. Whatever Captain Bruce was, whatever he had been, he
was now being taken away from all human judgment into the immediate
presence of Him who is at once the Judge and the Pardoner of sinners.

Awe-struck, the earl sat and watched the young man (for he could not be
thirty yet), struck down thus in the prime of his days--carried away
into the other world--while he himself, with his frail, flickering
taper of a life, remained. Wherefore? At length, in a whisper, he
called "Helen!" and she came and knelt beside the earl's chair.

"He is fast going," said she.

"I see that."

"In an hour or two, the doctor said."

"Then I will stay, if I may?"

"Oh yes."

Helen said it quite passively; indeed, her whole appearance as she moved
about the room, and then took her seat by her husband's side, indicated
one who makes no effort either to express or to restrain grief--who
has, in truth, suffered till she can suffer no more.

The dying man was not so near death as the doctor had thought, for after
a little he fell into what seemed a natural sleep. Helen leant her head
against the wall and closed her eyes. But that instant was heard from
the inner room a cry, the like of which Lord Cairnforth had never heard
before--the sharp, waking cry of a very young infant.

In a moment Helen started up--her whole expression changed; and when,
after a