"Helen!"
She recognized at once the little figure in Malcolm's arms.
"You—you! And you have come to me—come your own self! Oh, thank God!"
She leant against the doorway—not for weeping; she looked like one who had wept till she could weep no more, but breathing hard in heavy breaths, like sobs.
"Set me down, Malcolm, somewhere—any where. Then go outside."
Malcolm obeyed, finding a broken arm-chair and settling his master therein. Then, as he himself afterward told the story, though not till many years after, when nothing he told about that dear master's concerns could signify any more, he "gaed awa' doun and grat like a bairn."
Lord Cairnforth sat silent, waiting till Helen had recovered herself— Helen, whom, however changed, he would have known among a thousand. And then, with his quick observation, he took in as much of her circumstances as was betrayed by the aspect of the room, evidently kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom in one; for at the far end, close to the door that opened into the second apartment, which seemed a mere closet, was one 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.