"These debts must be paid, and immediately. The bare thought of them nearly drives me wild. But you shall not pay--do not think it," she added, almost fiercely. "See what my son himself says--and thank God he had the grace to say it--that I am on no account to go to you; that he 'will turn writer's clerk, or tutor, or any thing, rather than encroach farther on Lord Cairnforth's generosity.'." "Poor boy! poor boy!" "Then you don't think him altogether a bad boy?" appealed Mrs. Bruce, pitifully. "You do not fear that I may live to weep over the day when my son was born?" The earl smiled, and that quiet, half-amused smile, coming upon her in her excited state, seemed to soothe the mother more than any reasoning could have done. "No, Helen, I do not think any such thing. I think the lad has been very foolish, and we may have been the same. We kept him in leading-strings too long, and trusted him out of them too suddenly. But as to his being altogether bad--Helen Cardross's son, and the minister's grandson--nonsense, my dear." Mr. Cardross might have heard himself named, for he stirred in his peaceful slumbers, and Helen hastily took her letter from Lord Cairnforth's hand." "Not a word to him. He is too old. No trouble must ever come near him any more." "No, Helen. But remember your promise to do nothing till you have talked with me. It is my right, you know. The boy is my boy too. When will you come up to the Castle?" To-morrow? Nay, to-night, if you like." "I will come to-night." So, at dusk, in the midst of a wild storm, such as in these regions sometimes, nay, almost always succeeds very calm, mild autumn days, Helen appeared at the Castle, and went at once into the library where the earl usually sat. Strange contrast it was between the spacious apartment, with its lofty octagon walls laden with treasures of learning; book-shelves, tier upon tier, reaching to the very roof, which was painted in fresco; every ornamentation of the room being also made as perfect as its owner's fine taste and lavish means could accomplish, and this owner, this master of it all, a diminutive figure, sitting all alone by the vacant fireside--before him a little table, a lamp, and a book. But he was not reading; he was sitting thinking, as he often did now; he said he had read so much in his time that he was rather weary of it, and preferred thinking. Of what? the life he had passed through--still, uneventful, and yet a full and not empty human life? Or it might be, oftener still, upon the life to come?