Slowly the king set forth his hand, and it shook as he did so. He laid it on Owen's head, while the letter that was on his knees fluttered unheeded to the floor as he bent forward and spoke softly:
"Owen, Owen," he said, "I have forgotten nought. Forgive the old blindness, and come and take your place again beside me."
And as Owen took the hand that would have raised him and kissed it, the old king added in the voice of one from whom tears are not so far:
"I have wearied for you, Owen, my nephew. Sorely did I wrong you in my haste in the old days, and bitterly have I been punished. I pray you forgive."
Then Owen rose, and it seemed to me that on the king the weight of years had fallen suddenly, so that he had grown weak and needful of the strong arm of the steadfast prince who stood before him, and I took the arm of the steward and pulled him unresisting through the doorway, so that what greeting those two might have for one another should be their own.
Then said the steward to me as we looked at one another:
"This is the best day for us all that has been since the prince who has come back left us. There will be joy through all Cornwall."
But I knew that what I dreaded had come to pass, and that from henceforth the way of the prince of Cornwall and of the house-carle captain of Ina's court must lie apart, and I had no answer for him.
[CHAPTER V]. HOW OSWALD FELL INTO BAD HANDS, AND FARED EVILLY, ON THE QUANTOCKS.
It would be long for me to tell how presently Owen called me in to speak with the king, and how he owned me as his foster son in such wise that Gerent smiled on him, and spoke most kindly to me as though I had indeed been a kinsman of his own. And then, after we had spoken long together, Thorgils was sent for, and he told the tale of the end of Morgan plainly and in few words, yet in such skilful wise that as he spoke I could seem to see once more our hall and myself and Elfrida at the dais, even as though I were an onlooker.