CHAPTER TWO

THE FINDING OF TINKER

Sir Tancred went to the writing-table, sat down, and began to write.
He wrote slowly, pausing to think, and made many erasures.

"I think the advertisement will make my stepmother squirm. It'll make
the County talk," he said thoughtfully.

"It seems to me you can't help giving the show away," said Lord
Crosland.

There came a knock at the door, and a 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,