"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.

"Alas, no! Methinks I am a true Trevlyn for that. Sickness passes
me by and seizes upon others who might so much better be spared."

"Why dost thou say 'alas' to that, sweet sister?"

"Verily because there be times when I would so gladly lay down my
head never to lift it more. For me death would be sweeter than
life. The dead rest in God's peaceful keeping--my good aunt at the
Chase has told me so, and I no longer fear the scorching fires of
purgatory.