"Well, you can understand that, though I've agreed to share these rooms with you for the next few days, I can't make it a permanent arrangement. I may have to be off anywhere at a moment's notice. On the other hand, by offering a thumping big reward, as I can do at last, I shall probably find him at once; and you wouldn't care for rooms with a small child about."
"Oh, I don't know. I rather like kids," said Lord Crosland. "They're amusing little beggars often enough."
"Ah, but this one is so small; only two and a half," said Sir Tancred. "And now I'll write the advertisement."
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."