We were coming home, as fast as we could, to Cairnforth.

He"-- glancing toward the bed--"he wished it." Thus much thought for her, the dying man had shown.

He had been unwilling to leave his wife forlorn in a strange land.

He had come "fast as he could," that her child might be born and her husband die at Cairnforth--at least so the earl supposed, nor subsequently found any reason to doubt.

It was a good thing to hear then--good to remember afterward.
For hours the earl sat in the broken chair, with Helen and her baby opposite, watching and waiting for the end.
It did not come till near morning.