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 bitter voice.

"Have you now, sir?" said Selina. "Ah, if I'd only known, and come to
you!"

Her story had tided them over the greater part of their journey; and
for the rest of it they were silent, Sir Tancred immersed in a bitter
reverie, Selina sitting with a hand on each knee, bent forward, with
shining eyes, breathing quickly.

Towards the end of their journey she had to direct the cabman; and past
the last long row or little red-brick villas, in a waste from which the
agriculturalist had retired in favour of the jerry-builder, they came
to the goal, three dirty, tumble-down cottages. The cab stopped at the
third cottage; Selina sat back in the seat and pulled down her veil, in
case Mrs. Bostock should recognise her; Sir Tancred got down and
knocked at the door. A long-drawn snore was the only answer. He
hammered on the door with his cane till he heard the grating of a chair
on a brick floor; the door opened, and a blowsy, red-faced woman peered
at him with blinking eyes.

"You have a little boy here in your charge. I've come for him," said
Sir Tancred.

The woman only blinked at him stupidly.

"I've come for the little boy," said Sir Tancred loudly.

A look of drunken cunning stole into the woman's muddled face. She
said thickly, "There ain't no lil boy 'ere," and tried to shut the door.

Sir Tancred thrust it open with a vigo