, for the minister was growing too
feeble to come to the Castle very often.

His old pupil found him sitting in the garden, sunning himself in a
sheltered nook, backed by a goodly show of China roses and fuchsias,
and companioned by two or three volumes of Greek plays, in which,
however, he did not read much. He looked up with pleasure at the sound
of the wheeled chair along the gravel walk.

"I'm glad you are come," said he. "I'm sorely needing somebody, for I
have scarcely seen Helen all the morning. There she is! My lassie,
where have you been these three hours?"

Helen put off his question in some gentle manner, and took her place
beside her charge, or rather between her two charges, each helpless in
their way, though the one most helpless once was least so now.

"Helen, something is wrong with you this morning?" said the earl, when,
Mr. Cardross having gone away for his little daily walk up and down
between the garden and the kirk-yard, they two sat by themselves for a
while.

Mrs. Bruce made no answer.

"Nothing can be amiss with your boy, for I had a letter from him only
yesterday."

"I had one this morning."

"And what does he say to you? To me little enough, merely complaining
how dull he finds Edinburg now, and wishing he were back again among us
all."

"I do not wonder," said Helen, in a hard tone, and with that hard
expression which sometimes came over her face: the earl knew it well.

"Helen, I am certain something is very wrong with you. Why do you not
tell it out to me?"

"Hush! Here comes my father!"

And she hurried to him, gave him her arm, and helped his feeble steps
back into the house, where for some time they three remained talking
together about the little chit-chat of the parish, and the news of the
family, in its various ramifications, now extending year by year. Above
all, the minister like to hear and to talk about his eldest and favorite
grandchild--his name-child, too--Alexander Cardross Bruce.

But on this subject, usually the never-ceasing topic at the Manse, Helen
was for once profoundly silent. Even when her father had dropped
asleep, as in his feebleness of age he frequently did in the very midst
of conversation, she sat restlessly fingering her wedding-ring, and
another which she wore as a sort of guard to it, the only jewel she
possessed. It was a very large diamond, set in a plain hoop of gold.
The earl had given it to her a few months after she came back t