Chapter [15]: Petronella.
"Cuthbert, is it--can it really be thou?"
"Petronella--sister! What happiness to see thee once more!"
She clung to him almost sobbing in the excitement of pure happiness. He could feel that she trembled in his arms, and he enfolded the slight frame ever closer and closer.
"Sweetest sister, fear not! Dost fear I could not protect thee from harm? Believe me, thou hast a wondrous different brother now from the cowed and timorous lad who went forth from these doors but six short months back. Fear not, my sister; look up, and let me see thy face. I would learn how it has fared with thee since we parted that night on this very spot, though it now seems so long ago."
Petronella heaved a long sigh, and her tremblings gradually ceased. It seemed as though the brotherly clasp of those strong arms stilled her fears and brought comfort and soothing. But as Cuthbert held her closely to him, it seemed to him almost as though he clasped a phantom form rather than one of solid flesh and blood. There seemed nothing of the girl but skin and bone; and looking anxiously into the small oval face, he noted how wistful and hollow the great dark eyes had grown, and how pinched and worn every feature. Had it always been so with her? He scarce knew, for we heed little the aspect of those about us when we are young and inexperienced.
Petronella had always been somewhat shadowy and wan, had always been slight and slim and small. But was she always as wan and slight as she now seemed? or did he observe it the more from the contrast it presented to Cherry's blooming beauty, to which his eyes had grown used? He asked the question anxiously of himself, but could not answer it.
Then drawing Petronella into the full light of the silver moon, he made her sit beside him on a fragment of mouldering wall, and holding her thin hands in a warm clasp, he scanned her face with glances of earnest scrutiny.
"My sister, hast thou been ill?"
She shook her head with a pathetic little smile.