Of Cuthbert's intended flight she made no attempted revelation. She
must act now, and explain later, if she could ever make the old
woman understand, that her brother had fled, and had not been done
to death by his hard-hearted father.

Supper was over. It had been at the close of that meal that the
explosion had taken place. She would not be called upon to meet her
father again that day. Fleeing up the broken stone staircase just
as his feet were heard returning from the vaulted room, she heard
him bang to the door of the living room before she dared to steal
into the little bare chamber where her brother slept, and where all
his worldly possessions were stored.

The old Gate House was a strange habitation. Formerly merely the
gateway to the Castle, which had once reared its proud head upon
the crest of the hill to the westward, it had but scant
accommodation for a family--one living room below, flanked on one
side by the kitchen, and on the other by the vaulted chamber, once
possibly a guardroom, but so bitterly cold and damp now that it was
never used save for such purposes as had been witnessed there that
evening. A winding, broken stone stairway led upwards to a few very
narrow chambers above of irregular shape, and all lighted by
loophole windows deeply splayed. The lowest of these was the place
where Nicholas slept, and there was a slight attempt at furniture
and comfort; but the upper chambers, where Petronella and Cuthbert
retired out of the way of their father's sullen and morose temper,
were bare of all but actual necessities, and lacked many things
which would be numbered amongst essentials in later days. The stone
floors had not even a carpeting of rushes, the pallet beds lay on