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?
Lord Cairnforth refused to let his visitor say one word, or even sit
down, till he had placed her in Mrs. Campbell's charge, to be dried and
reclothed, for she was dripping wet with rain--such rain as come
nowhere but at Loch Beg. By-and-by she reappeared in the library,
moving through its heavy shadows, and looking herself again--the
calm, dignified woman, "my cousin, Mrs. Bruce," who sometimes appeared
among Lord Cairnforth's guests, and whom, though she was too retiring to
attract much notice, every body who did notice was sure to approve.
She took her accustomed place by the earl's side, and plunged at once,
in Helen's own way, into the business which had brought her hither.
"I am not come to beg or to borrow, do not think it--only to ask
advice. Tell me, what am I to say to my boy?"
And again, the instant she mentioned her son's name, she gave way to
tears.
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