“I trust he may; so may I the better effect my purpose.  Listen, sister, for he will return right soon, and I must be brief.  I have been shut up here before, and dreaming of some such day as this, I have worked my way through one of yon stout bars to the window; and it will fall out now with a touch.  Night falls early in these dark November days.  When the great clock in the tower of the Chase tolls eight strokes, then steal thou from the house bearing some victuals in a wallet, and my good sword and dagger and belt.  Meet me by the ruined chantry where we have sat so oft.  I will then tell thee all that is in my heart—­for which time lacks me to speak now.

“Hist! there is his returning step.  Leave me now, and weep not.  I care naught for hard blows; I have received too many in my time.  But these shall be the last!”

Petronella, trembling in every limb, shrank silently away in the shadows as her father approached, the sight of his grim, stern face and the cruel-looking weapon in his hands bringing quick thrills of pain and pity to her gentle heart.  Petronella was a very tender floweret to have been reared amidst so much hardness and sorrow.  It was wonderful that she had lived through the helpless years of infancy (her mother had died ere she had completed her second year) with such a father over her, or that having so lived she had preserved the sweetness and clinging softness of temperament which gave to her such a strange charm—­at least in the opinion of one.  Doubtless she owed much of her well being to the kindly care of an old deaf and dumb woman, the only servant in that lonely old house, who had entered it to nurse the children’s mother through her last illness, and had stayed on almost as a matter of course, receiving no wage for her untiring service, but only the coarse victuals that all shared alike, and such scanty clothing as was absolutely indispensable.

To this old crone Petronella fled with white face and tearful eyes, as the sound of those terrible blows smote upon her ears with the whistling noise that well betrayed the force with which they were dealt.  She quickly made the faithful old creature aware of what was going on, and her sympathy was readily aroused on behalf of the sufferer.  The dumb request for food was also understood and complied with.  No doubt there had been times before when the girl had crept with bread and meat in her apron to the solitary captive, who was shut up alone without food till he should come to a better mind.

Of Cuthbert’s intended flight she made no attempted revelation.  She must act now, and explain later, if she could ever make the old woman understand, that her brother had fled, and had not been done to death by his hard-hearted father.

Supper was over.  It had been at the close of that meal that the explosion had taken place.  She would not be called upon to meet her father again that day.  Fleeing up the broken stone staircase just as his feet were heard returning from the vaulted room, she heard him bang to the door of the living room before she dared to steal into the little bare chamber where her brother slept, and where all his worldly possessions were stored.