hame--best at hame!' And when Malcolm lifted him, he gied a bit
skreigh, as if he'd hurted himself--Minister, I wish I'd thae London
doctors here by our loch side," muttered Duncan between his teeth, and
pulling away fiercely at his oar; but the minister said nothing.

He and Helen went silently home, and finding no message, walked on as
silently up to the Castle together.





Chapter 6

Old Duncan's penetration had been correct--the difficult and painful
London journey was all in vain. Lord Cairnforth had returned home
neither better nor worse than he was before; the experiment had failed.

Helen and her father guessed this from their first sight of him, though
they had found him sitting as usual in his arm-chair at his favorite
corner, and when they entered the library he had looked up with a smile
--the same old smile, as natural as though he had never been away.

"Is that you, Mr. Cardross? Helen too? How kind of you to come and see
me so soon!"

But, in spite of his cheerful greeting, they detected at once the
expression of suffering in the poor face--"sae white and sae sma',"
as Duncan had said; pale beyond its ordinary pallor, and shrunken and
withered like an old man's; the more so, perhaps, as the masculine down