Jeannette’s gentle hand restrained me, as the old man, taking a step or two down the room as far as the end of the table, stood there facing the door. Then there fell on my ears a voice and the ring of a footstep in the courtyard without. Next moment, the door swung open and Ludar walked quietly in.
Jeannette led me softly from the place, and kept me cruelly pacing in the outer darkness for half-an-hour before she said:
“Art thou not going in to welcome thy friend, Humphrey?”
Need I say what passed, when at last we stood all four together in that great hall?
The old chief had taken his seat again at the table, and sat there solemn and impassive, as if all that had passed had been but the ordinary event of an afternoon. But the fire in his eye betrayed him, as now and again he half turned his head to the window where Ludar and the maiden stood gazing out across the waves.
“Humphrey, my brother,” said Ludar, when at last Jeannette and I drew near, “’tis worth a little storm to be thus in port at last, and to find you there too.”
“Ay, indeed,” said I. “And, as you see, there are more than I here to greet you.”
Then he stepped up to Jeannette and gazed in her face a moment, and kissed her on the brow.
“Thou art welcome to Dunluce, sister Jeannette,” said he.
Jeannette told me afterwards that she never felt so proud in her life as when Ludar’s lips touched her forehead, and she heard him call her sister.