n so long delivering. It was no little comfort to him in this
revival of sorrow to hear that she had learned of the accident which
prevented him from coming to her, and, sure of their ultimate meeting,
had come to bear patiently their separation. And the knowledge that
she must die without seeing him again had come to her in the merciful
and indifferent weariness so often the forerunner of death.

When he had heard, and heard again, all that Selina could tell him, he
gave her a cheque for five hundred pounds, putting aside her
protestations that she had never looked for it, and would rather not
have it, with the declaration that he had actually written out the
advertisement offering that reward for information about his missing
child, when she had brought it.

Long after she had gone to bed, he sat thinking over her story,
immersed in unhappy memories and unavailing regrets, and his bitterness
against his stepmother and uncle grew and grew in him at the ill
treatment his child had endured through their interference and neglect,
to a strength to which his own wrongs had never brought it.

The suppression and ignoring of Selina's last letters was inexplicable
to him; he could only suppose that his stepmother had burnt them on
reading only the signature; or had believed them to be the
misrepresentations of a person trying to supplant Mrs. Bostock. He
thought for a while of writing to his stepmother out of the fulness of
his heart; and then he told himself that it was no use. At last he
went heavily to bed. Three times in the night he awoke, and went and
listened at the door of the boy's bedroom; there was no sound; he was
sleeping peacefully.

After his morning bath Tinker looked a shade less grimy, and even the
few meals he had enjoyed since his rescue had filled out his face a
little. About eleven it was decided that a walk in the Embankment
gardens would be good for him, and Selina carried him out. But it was
very soon plain that it was anything but good for him. Every passer-by
thrilled him with a fresh terror; in three minutes he clung to Selina
panting and gasping with fright, his little fingers gripping her with a
convulsive clutch, his eyes starting out of his head, but all in a
terrible silence. It was appalling to see such an extremity of emotion
not dare to find a vocal expression. Quickly they perceived that there
was no reassuring or soothing him; Sir Tancred blindfolded him with his
handkerchief