Almost had Owen sprung toward him, but he forbore, and when the king had taken his seat he went slowly to him, holding out a letter which Ina had written for him, saying nothing.  And Gerent took it without a word or so much as a glance at the bearer from under his heavy brows, and opened it.

Owen stood back by me, and we watched the face of the king as he read.  We saw his brows knit themselves fiercely at first, and then as he went on they cleared until he seemed as calm as when he first met us.  But the flush that had come with the frown had not faded when at last he looked keenly at us.

“Come nearer,” he said in a harsh voice, speaking in fair Saxon.  “Know you what is written herein?”

“I know it,” Owen said.

“Here Ina says that this is borne by one whom I know.  Is it you or this young warrior?”

Then Owen went forward and fell on one knee before the king, and said in his own tongue—­the tongue of Cornwall and of Devon: 

“I am that one of whom Ina has spoken.  Yet it is for Gerent to say whether he will own that he knows me even yet.”

I saw the king start as the voice of Owen came to him in the familiar language, and he knitted his brows as one who tries to recall somewhat forgotten, and he looked searchingly in the face of the man who knelt before him, scanning every feature.

And at last he said in a hushed voice, not like the harsh tones of but now: 

“Can it be Owen?—­Owen, the son of my sister?  They said that one like him served the Saxon, but I did not believe it.  That is no service for one of our line.”

“What shall an exile do but serve whom he may, if the service be an honoured one?  Yet I will say that I wandered long, seeing and learning, before there came to me a reason that I should serve Ina.  To you I might not return.”

But the king was silent, and I thought that he was wroth, while Owen bided yet there on his knee before him, waiting his word.  And when that came at last, it was not as I feared.

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.