And he was Helen's husband--Helen, the true and the good; the poor minister's daughter, who had been brought up to think that it was better to starve upon porridge and salt than to owe any one a halfpenny! What sort of a marriage could it possibly turn out to be?
To this question, which Lord Cairnforth asked himself continually, in an agony of doubt, no answer came--no clue whatsoever, though, from even the first week, Helen's letters reached the Manse as regularly as clock work.

But they were merely outside letters--very sweet and loving -- telling her father every thing that could interest him about foreign places, persons, and things; only of herself and her own feelings saying almost nothing.

It was unlikely she should: the earl laid this comfort to his soul twenty times a day.

She was married now; she could not be expected to be frank as in her girlhood; still, this total silence, so unnatural to her candid disposition, alarmed him.
But there was no resource--no help.

Into that secret chamber which her own hand thus barred, no other hand could presume to break.