thbert started.

"My sister!" he said; "how knowest thou that?"

Joanna smiled her lofty smile.

"Ask a gipsy how she knoweth what takes place within the limits of
her domain! Tush, boy! thinkest thou that I do not know all that
passes in the forest? Thy sister has done well to find a shelter
there. She is safer at the Cross Way House than in this dell with
thee."

"If she is safe I can well look to myself," answered Cuthbert, with
the confidence of youth and strength. "To be warned where the peril
lies is half the battle. I will be cautious--I will be wary; and
having naught to keep me in the forest, I will start for London
town this very day."

"Ay, do so, and without an hour's delay. Old Miriam is raging like
a fury. Tyrrel may at any moment return, and I trow she will rouse
him to bitter enmity towards thee. Fly, before any strive to stay
thee. And when thou hast reached the city, go once again to Esther.
Tell her that the deed is done, the treasure found, that it lies in
the house of the Wyverns, and that the luck has come back to the
house, as was always said, through the daughters' sons."

"I will," answered Cuthbert; and bidding a farewell to the gipsy,
to whose protection and goodwill he owed so much, he left the dell
and made his way rapidly through the forest, till he struck the
road which would lead him to London.

He would not turn out of the direct way to go to the Cross Way
House, though he would gladly have seen his sister and Kate and his
aged kinswomen again. He did not wish them to know of the peril
which might threaten his own path, nor did he desire to draw
attention to that house by directing his steps thither in broad
daylight. Plainly his presence in the forest had already excited
remark. He had been seen far oftener than he had known. If he did
not linger, but pursued his way to London without delay, he might
reach it by nightfall, and that was no small inducement to him.
Petronella knew that he was bound thither; she would not reckon on
seeing him again. And there was Cherry at the other end. The
thought of seeing her again that very day drew him onwards like a
magnet. During these long weeks of search and hard toil, the
thought of Cherry had been the best sweetener of his labour. He had
talked of her with his sister, he had dreamed of her when he lay
down to sleep at night, and now he was on his way to see her, to
tell her all the tale, and ask her at her father's hand. The
thought