"Father, father!" he cried, "come back! come back! You never knew
how I loved you! how I could love you still--if--Oh God!"

And the thought of his little child rose before him. "Yes, father,"
he cried afresh, "you never knew how he fell--how he died! Oh, if I
had but had patience to tell you! If you would but have borne with
me and listened! And now it is over! Oh father! father!"

Whether she had heard this wild wailing voice, or whether it was only
that she missed her husband and wanted him for some little every-day
question, or, as was perhaps more likely, she had discovered Owen's
escape, and come to inform her husband of it, I do not know, but on
the rock, right above his head, as it seemed, Owen heard his
stepmother calling her husband.

He was silent, and softly pushed the boat right under the rock till
the sides grated against the stones, and the overhanging branches
concealed him and it from all not on a level with the water. Wet as
he was, he lay down by his dead father the better to conceal himself;
and, somehow, the action recalled those early days of childhood--the
first in the Squire's widowhood--when Owen had shared his father's
bed, and used to waken him in the morning to hear one of the old
Welsh legends. How long he lay thus--body chilled, and brain hard-
working through the heavy pressure of a reality as terrible as a
nightmare--he never knew; but at length he roused himself up to think
of Nest.

Drawing out a great sail, he covered up the body of his father with
it where he lay in the bottom of the boat. Then with his numbed