waiter came in: "Please, Sir Tancred, there's a lady, leastways a person, wanting to see you."

"To see me?" said Sir Tancred with some surprise. "Who can it be? Show her up?"

He went on with his writing, and presently the waiter ushered in a tall, gaunt woman, with a rugged, hard-featured face, dressed in the rustiest black, and carrying a brown-paper parcel.

Sir Tancred turned round in his chair, and she said very nervously, "Good-morning, sir."

"Good-morning," said Sir Tancred; then he sprang up and cried, "Why—why—it's Selina Goodyear!"

"Yes, sir, it's me. I was afraid you wouldn't remember me after all this time. And—and—it's a liberty I'm taking, coming to see you like this," she went on with a voluble, nervous eagerness, twisting her hands. "But not getting any answer to my letters, I went down to Beauleigh Court yesterday on the chance of getting a word with you; for I knew you'd be bound to be there, seeing as it was your coming of age. But I didn't get a chance, and came back to London by the last train, not knowing as you was in it, till I came out of Victoria, and saw you getting into a cab and heard you tell the cabman to drive here. And I made up my mind to come and see you here, though I know it's a liberty I'm taking. But I can't help it,"—and her voice suddenly grew fierce,—"it's about the boy."

"The boy! My boy!" cried Sir Tancred.

"Yes, sir. You see I was his nurse from the first. Poor Miss Pamela—I mean Lady Beauleigh, sir—gave him to me to take care of before she died—leastways, she didn't give him to me, she was too weak, poor dear; but she told me to take care of him, as I wrote to you, sir."

"As you wrote? Yes; go on."

"And I did take care of him till Mr. Vane died. And oh, he was such a dear baby! Then, when the young lawyer came with Mrs. Bostock and told me as how you had arranged for her to have charge of him, and I had to give him over to her, it nearly broke my heart. But it isn't about myself I came to talk, but about him. I know it's troubling you, sir—and a gentleman has his pleasures, and they take up his time. But, after all, he's your own son, sir, and if you'd only come and see him for yourself, you wouldn't let him be treated like he is——"

"You know where he is!" Sir Tancred almost shouted.

"Why, of course, sir. I told you in my letters. He's living with them Bostocks, out Catford way."

"You must take me to him at once!" cried Sir Tancred; and he rushed into his bedroom, and came out with a hat and stick.

"Look here, old chap," said Lord Crosland. "I'm going to clear out for a few days. You'd like the kid to yourself at first. Then I'll come back and share the rooms if you like."

"Oh, no; it'll be all right," said Sir Tancred, and he hurried Selina from the room to the lift, from the lift to a cab.

They were no sooner settled in it, and the driver was getting quickly through the traffic under the stimulus of a promise of treble his fare, than Sir Tancred turned to Selina, and said quickly: "What do you mean by saying that I would not let the child be treated as he is? How's he treated?"

"I mean that he's starved and beaten, that's what I mean, sir," said Selina. "Just what I said in my letters."

"But I was told he was in the hands of respectable people."

"Respectable!" exclaimed Selina: "but I told you in my letters all about them, sir."

"When did you write to me?" said Sir Tancred.

"First when Miss Pamela died; and then when Mr. Vane died,"—Sir Tancred saw how his stepmother had obtained the information which enabled her to get possession of the child,—"and three times since October."

"Since October!" cried Sir Tancred; he had never dreamed that the suppression of his letters had continued after his recovery.

"I only found the boy in October," said Selina.

"Look here," said Sir Tancred, "you'd better tell me the whole story from the beginning. I didn't get your letters."

"You didn't get them?" said Selina, and her face cleared. "I thought you couldn't have, sir. I knew you wasn't the one to take no notice of them. Well, it was like this, sir. When Mrs. Bostock took the boy away, I began to worry and worry about him; I kind of pined for him. Then I thought if I could see him sometimes, I should feel better; and I never liked the looks of Mrs. Bostock. She looked like a drinker; though all the time she was in Jersey with the lawyer she kept sober enough. I had got another place in St. Hellers, but I couldn't stand worrying about him, and wondering if he was well treated. And I didn't like the way she wouldn't tell me where she lived. I had my savings, too; so I gave up my place, and came to London to look for her. I knew she lived in South London from something she let drop; and I took a room in Lambeth and looked for her in neighbourhoods which would be likely for her to live in. But it's a large place, sir, and I was months and months doing it, moving from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. I used to trapse and trapse about all day, and at night I used to go into Publics, the saloon bars as well as the common bars, for I didn't know which class she really belonged to. I went into hundreds of Publics, but I never set eyes on her. Then, last October, when I'd nearly come to the end of my savings, I saw her going into a Public at New Cross. I couldn't believe it; it seemed too good to be true. I thought I must have made a mistake; I daren't go in, for fear she should know me; and I thought she never would come out. When she did come out, and I saw it was really 'er, I nearly fainted right away; but I follered 'er, and she went from Public to Public with two shops in between, and it was nearly ten o'clock when she took the tram, and past eleven when she got to her cottage at Catford, for she stopped at two more Publics. But I walked about all night, for I wasn't going to take no chances; and next morning I found, sure enough, that the child was there. But he was that changed, and he didn't know me." Her harsh voice sank to the mournfullest tone; and she paused.

Sir Tancred said nothing, he could say nothing; he was amazed and profoundly touched by the persistence of this passionate, single-eyed devotion in this hard-featured, harsh-voiced, rugged creature.

"Well, sir," Selina went on, "I moved to Eltham, and took a room. I soon found out what sort the Bostocks were. Every Saturday they drew two pounds for the keep of the child; and they were hardly ever sober till Thursday. And they starved the child, sir; and sometimes they beat him. Now and then, when they were drunk, I've got food, good food to him. But not often, for he was their livelihood, and however drunk they was, they kept an eye on him; mostly he's locked up in a bedroom. I wrote to you, sir, three times, and waited and waited for answers till I was sick at heart; and things was getting worse and worse. I couldn't have stood it any longer; I was just going to steal him and carry him off somewhere where I could look after him without no one interfering. But I thought I'd see you, and tell you about it first. And now, sir, if you'd let me have charge of him"—her eyes fairly blazed with eagerness—"I'd look after him properly—I would, indeed. And I shouldn't want no two pounds a week—why, five shillings, five shillings would be ample, sir. I'm a capable woman, and I can get as much charring as ever I can do."

"Of course, you shall have charge of him," said Sir Tancred. "You seem to be the only person in the world who has any right to have charge of him."

"Oh, thank you, sir!" said Selina in a husky voice; and she dabbed at her eyes.

"It's not for you to thank me; it's for me to thank you," said Sir Tancred.

"Oh, no, sir!" said Selina quickly. "I know what gentlemen are. I've been in service in good houses. They have their sport and their pleasures; and they can't attend to things like this."

"I've been looking for him for six months—ever since I knew that I had a child," said Sir Tancred in a very