"
"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.
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