Yet all the while she was longing to hear Petronella's tale, and was glad when the tapestry work was put away, and formal good nights had been exchanged. The girls ran up to the guest chamber prepared for Kate, which they had agreed to share together from that time forth. It did not take them long to slip into bed; and old Dyson, the waiting woman, who also acted as housekeeper, came quickly in to see that the lights were safely extinguished, after which only the glow of the fire illuminated the darkness of the big room; and Kate in an eager whisper begged Petronella to lose no time in telling her tale. With breathless eagerness she heard of the girl's flight from home, and of her rescue of Cuthbert from the very jaws of death. She could not understand Petronella's shuddering horror at the thought of having killed a man. "I would have killed fifty, and been glad to rid the earth of them were they such wretches as Long Robin!" she cried. Then in deep silence she heard of Cuthbert's dive into the well, and of the golden flagon he had brought up as an earnest of what was to come. Petronella went on to say that, having made absolutely sure of the presence of the treasure in the well, Cuthbert had then directed all his energies to detecting the sources of the hidden springs that fed it, and after long search and patience had satisfied himself that it was filled by two, both rising in the high ground not far distant. He had then set to work to see how these waters could be diverted so as to leave the well dry at his will; and though it had taken months to perform this feat, and had only been done at the cost of immense labour and trouble, still it had been done, and one day in early September the brother and sister had stood together to see the water ebbing slowly and more slowly away, until at last their eyes beheld a vast quantity of silver and gold lying exposed at the bottom of the well, and knew that the lost treasure of Trevlyn was theirs indeed. But their labours were not yet ended. It was plain to both that they must quickly find some safe spot whither they could transport it all, else some passing traveller might even now see and report what he had seen, and so rob them of the fruit of their toil. Afraid to go to Trevlyn Chase for help, lest the news should in some way leak out to Nicholas at the Gate House, and also because the brother and sister had set their hearts on accomplishing the task entirely alone, it suddenly entered Cuthbert's head to take his sister to the Cross Way House, and ask of its owners protection for her through the approaching inclement season; and then, if satisfied that these Wyvern kinswomen were to be trusted, and were friendly of disposition towards them, to whisper the secret of the treasure trove in their ears, and ask leave to deposit it all within the great strongroom underground, that the Wyvern house had always boasted, and of which the secret was known to very few.