“Draw me up; the water is chill as ice!”

From the sound of his voice she could not tell whether success had crowned the attempt or not.  She turned without another word, and led the donkey onwards, gently drawing Cuthbert from the depths of the well.  As she did so he gave a sudden shout of triumph, and springing over the side of the wall, flung at her feet a solid golden flagon richly chased, with the arms of the Trevlyns engraved upon it.

“I scarce dared to look at what I had got as I came up!” he cried, as he sprang high into the air in the exuberance of his spirit; “but that will lay all doubt at rest.  The lost treasure of Trevlyn is lost no longer, and Cuthbert and Petronella have found it!”

Chapter 18:  “Saucy Kate.”

“Wife, what ails the child?”

Lady Frances Trevlyn raised her calm eyes from her embroidery, and gave one swift glance around the room, as if to make sure that she and her husband were alone.

“Dost thou speak of Kate?” she asked then in a low voice.

“Ay, marry I do,” answered Sir Richard, as he took the seat beside the glowing hearth, near to his wife’s chair, which was his regular place when he was within doors.  “I scarce know the child again in some of her moods.  She was always wayward and capricious, but as gay and happy as the day was long—­as full of sunshine as a May morning.  Whence come, then, all these vapours and reveries and bursts of causeless weeping?  I have found her in tears more oft these last three months than in all the years of her life before; and though she strives to efface the impression by wild outbreaks of mirth, such as we used of old to know, there is something hollow and forced about these merry moods, and the laugh will die away the moment she is alone, and a look will creep upon her face that I like not to see.”

“Thou hast watched her something closely, Richard.”

“Ay, truly I have.  I would have watched any child of mine upon whom was passing so strange a change; but thou knowest that Kate has ever been dear to me—­I have liked to watch her in her tricksy moods.  She has been more full of affection for me than her graver sisters, and even her little whims and faults that we have had to check have but endeared her to me the more.  The whimsies of the child have often brought solace to my graver cares.  I love Kate right well, and like not to see this change in her.  What dost thou think of it, goodwife?”

Lady Frances shook her head gravely.

“Methinks the child has something on her mind, and her sisters think so likewise, but what it is we none of us can guess.  She keeps her secret well.”

“It is not like Kate to have a secret; it is still less like her to hide it.”

“That is what I feel.  I have looked day by day and hour by hour for her to come to me or to thee to tell what is in her mind.  But the weeks have sped by and her lips are still sealed, and, as thou sayest, she is losing her gay spirits, or else her gaiety is over wild, but doth not ring true; and there is a look in her eyes that never used to be there, and which I like not.”