Standing beneath it with the oak behind him, he looked straight along the way he had come across the bog and moss. Surely there were nine miles, and little more or less, between the one spot and the other. And again, with the oak behind there was a beech at his right hand, and straight before him the road to the pixies' dell. Well, it might not be much, yet it seemed like a link in the chain. Esther had perchance heard Robin mutter these numbers in his troubled sleep. Surely he had been thinking or dreaming of that long nine miles' tramp, and the words he had used to direct the men whom afterwards he had foully and treacherously murdered! "I am on the track! I am on the track!" cried Cuthbert exultantly, as he pursued his way. "The secret lies hid in the pixies' dell. Surely if I have learned as much as that, I cannot be long in finding out the whole!" And with thoughts of his sister, of Cherry, of Kate, warm in his heart, Cuthbert sped gaily along in the direction of his old home. Midnight struck from the clock in the turret of Trevlyn Chase as the youth approached the gray walls of the old Gate House. How grim and hoary it looked in the white moonlight! Something of a faint shiver of repulsion ran through Cuthbert's frame as he looked upon the familiar outline of the building. Was it possible that all but the few last months of his life had been spent there? It seemed to him that the old life was already like a dim and distant dream, and that the fuller life he had enjoyed since leaving was the only one that had any reality about it. But he well knew the habits and the sullen ferocity of the grim old man his father, and it was with cautious steps that he approached the walls. No light burned in any window. The inmates of the building were doubtless wrapped in sleep. He well knew his sister's window, and cutting himself a long hazel bough, he gently swept it to and fro across the glass. This had always been a signal between them in their childhood, and many had been their nocturnal rambles taken together when Cuthbert had contrived to escape from the house before it was locked up, and had then called Petronella and assisted her down by the tangled ivy that clung to the gray old walls. He knew she would recognize in a moment who was outside when she heard the tapping of that hazel wand; and it seemed indeed as if she did, for in a moment the window was opened, and a soft tremulous voice asked eagerly: "Cuthbert, can it be thou?" "It is indeed I, sweet sister. Canst thou come to me? Hast thou lost thy cunning or thy lightness of foot? I am here to help thee." "I will come to thee anon; but the little postern door is seldom locked since thou art gone, and I can get out thus. Linger not beside the house, Cuthbert; speed to the chantry--I will meet thee there. He might hear or see thee here. Do not linger; go. I will be with thee anon; I will not keep thee but a few short minutes. But do not tarry; go!"