"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.
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