"I am doing as thou biddest me," she answered in a low voice: "I am flying from our home, even as thou wast forced to fly. I verily believe that thou art right, and that our father is well-nigh mad. I dared not remain. Even old Martha feared to linger longer under that roof. She has found safe refuge, I trust, at Trevlyn Chase. Thou didst go there, my brother, after parting from me?"
"Ay, verily I did, and stayed there a matter of some two weeks, ever hoping to see thy face again, and to hear how it fared with thee. But thou camest not."
"I could not," answered the girl, in the same low tone; "I was in my bed, unable to move hand or foot, unable to know night from day. Cuthbert, the night I went forth to thee in the chantry our father missed me from the house. He thought I had gone to meet Philip in the wood at night. He reviled me cruelly, and I feared to tell him it was thou I had gone to see. Then, I know not how, but I fear he struck me. A great blackness came before mine eyes; and when I opened them again a week or more had passed, and I knew, as I began to understand what had chanced, that I could no longer remain beneath the roof of the Gate House."
Cuthbert ground his teeth in sudden fury.
"Struck thee, my gentle sister! Nay, I can scarce credit it; and were he any other than my father--"
"But he is our father," answered the girl gently. "And truly methinks, Cuthbert, that his lonely brooding has something unhinged his mind. Let us think of him only with pity."
Cuthbert put his arm about her tenderly.
"Tell me the rest of thy story, sister. How camest thou here so opportunely, to play the part of Amazon and save thy brother's life?"
She shivered a little, as if afraid even to think what she had done, but her words were quietly and clearly spoken.
"That is soon told. Old Martha nursed me back to health again, and our stern father hindered her not in her tendance of me. And this very night we made our plans, and she put a concoction of herbs into his nightly potion, which caused him to sleep too sound to awake for any sound within or without the house. Then we softly stole away without let or hindrance--she to go to the Chase, I to walk across the moorland and forest as thou hadst bidden me, to find thee here."