He had then set to work to see how these waters could be diverted so as to leave the well dry at his will; and though it had taken months to perform this feat, and had only been done at the cost of immense labour and trouble, still it had been done, and one day in early September the brother and sister had stood together to see the water ebbing slowly and more slowly away, until at last their eyes beheld a vast quantity of silver and gold lying exposed at the bottom of the well, and knew that the lost treasure of Trevlyn was theirs indeed.

But their labours were not yet ended.  It was plain to both that they must quickly find some safe spot whither they could transport it all, else some passing traveller might even now see and report what he had seen, and so rob them of the fruit of their toil.

Afraid to go to Trevlyn Chase for help, lest the news should in some way leak out to Nicholas at the Gate House, and also because the brother and sister had set their hearts on accomplishing the task entirely alone, it suddenly entered Cuthbert’s head to take his sister to the Cross Way House, and ask of its owners protection for her through the approaching inclement season; and then, if satisfied that these Wyvern kinswomen were to be trusted, and were friendly of disposition towards them, to whisper the secret of the treasure trove in their ears, and ask leave to deposit it all within the great strongroom underground, that the Wyvern house had always boasted, and of which the secret was known to very few.

This was the plan that had been carried out.  His reception by Lady Humbert, and her kindness to the lonely Petronella when her pitiful story was told, quite decided Cuthbert to confide the golden secret to her.  She listened in amaze, but was highly pleased at being the first person to know it.  She laid her hand on Cuthbert’s head, and spoke to him of the old saw which predicted that fortune should return to the Wyverns through the daughters’ sons, and declared that he was fulfilling the prophecy she had longed to live to see come true.  Cuthbert trusted that such indeed would be the case, but did not know whether the Wyverns had any lot or share in the treasure trove.  Whereat the old lady smiled, and said that she laid no claim to the gold—­it was none of theirs, and never would be; but still, with her hand on Cuthbert’s head, she declared that after herself and her sister he should reign at the Cross Way House, and that his share of the treasure, which in all sooth should be a large one, since but for him it might never have been found, would go to restore the fallen fortunes of the house, and to fulfil in very truth the fondly-cherished prediction.