"Your heir! Who do you mean?" interrupted Captain Bruce, thrown off his guard by excessive surprise.
The earl said, with a little dignity of manner, "It is scarcely needful to answer your question. The title, you are aware, will be extinct; I meant the successor to my landed property."
"Do I know the gentleman?"
"I named no gentleman."
"Not surely a lady? Not—" a light suddenly breaking in upon him, so startling that it overthrew all his self-control, and even his good breeding. "It can not possibly be Miss Helen Cardross?"
"Captain Bruce," said the earl, the angry color flashing all over his pale face, "I was simply communicating a message to you; there was no need for any farther questioning."
"I beg your pardon, Lord Cairnforth," returned the other, perceiving how great a mistake he had made. "I have no right whatever to question, or even to speculate concerning your heir, who is doubtless the fittest person you could have selected."
"Most certainly," replied the earl, in a manner which put a final stop to the conversation.
It was not resumed on any other topics; and shortly afterward, Malcolm having come in with the announcement that the carriage had returned from the Manse (at which Captain Bruce's sharp eyes were bent scrutinizing on the earl's face, but learned nothing thence), the cousins separated.
The captain had faithfully promised to be up at dawn to see the travelers off, but an apology came from him to the effect that the morning air was too damp for his lungs, and that he had spent a sleepless night owning to his cough.