"What change? What's the matter with my face?" said Sir Tancred indifferently.
"Well, you used to be a cheerful-looking beggar, don't you know. Now you look like what do you call him—who fell from Heaven—Lucifer, son of the Morning. I read about him at Vane's, mugging up poetry for that exam."
"You'll hardly believe it," said Sir Tancred very seriously, "but I took to reading books myself at Beauleigh, when I got all right—reading books and mooning about. I had no energy. I went and saw Vane's solicitor of course; but he could tell me nothing, or wouldn't tell me. Said his client had called on him, and told him to inform my stepmother of Pamela's death, and had not told him where she died, or where he was now living. I fancied he was keeping something back; but I had no energy, and I didn't drag it out of him. I went to Stanley House; it was to be let. No one could tell me where the Vanes had gone. I stayed at Beauleigh—mooning about. I wouldn't go to Oxford; and I wouldn't travel. I mooned about. Six months ago I came across Vicary at a meet—you remember Vicary at Vane's?—he told me that Vane had died in Jersey. I went to Jersey, and found Vane's grave. Next to it was my wife's."
Again Sir Tancred fell silent in a gloomy musing.
"Well?" said Lord Crosland gently.
"The oddest thing happened. It doesn't sound exactly credible; and you won't understand it. I don't. But as I stood by the grave, I suddenly felt that there was something for me to do, something very important that had to be done. It was odd, very odd. I went back to my hotel quite harassed, puzzling and racking my brains. Then an idea struck me; and I had a hunt through the registers. I found that two days before she died a boy was born, Hildebrand Anne Beauleigh—the old Beauleigh names. She knew that I should like him to be called by them. From the registers I learnt where they had been living. I rushed off to the house, and found it empty and to let—always these shut-up houses. I made inquiries and inquiries, from the house agents and the tradespeople. I could learn nothing. They had lived very quietly. But there was a child; people had seen him wheeled about in a perambulator. He had disappeared. I suspected my stepmother at once; and I hurried back to Beauleigh. It had bucked me up, don't you know, to think that I had a child. I had it out with my stepmother; and what do you think she told me?"
"Can't guess; but I'm laying odds that it doesn't surprise me," said Lord Crosland.
"She said that the fact of my having a son and heir would stand in the way of my making the marriage she hoped. That the boy was in the hands of a respectable couple, where I need never hope to find him; that he would be brought up in the station of life suitable to his mother's having been the daughter of a Tutor. My word, I did talk about the firm of Stryke & Wigram!"
"I should think you must have," said Lord Crosland.
"I lost no time, but put the matter in the hands of a crack Private Inquiry Agency. When they learned what I was doing, I'm hanged if my stepmother and uncle Bumpkin didn't stop my allowance." He laughed ruefully. "However, I kept the inquiries going by selling my two horses, my jewellery, my guns, and my clothes. That's why I'm in these rags. But no good came of it; the private detective discovered nothing, and charged me nearly three hundred for discovering it. But the crowning point of my stepmother's madness came yesterday. We had the proper business interview on my coming of age; and she and uncle Bumpkin handed me over six hundred a year, and six thousand ready money. Then she made me an offer. She would give me ten thousand a year to enable me to keep up the glory of the Beauleighs, and marry the millions to increase it, if I would give up searching for the boy, and consent to his being brought up in his respectable position. I didn't talk about swindling him out of his rights; for I've come to the conclusion that it's no good talking of Justice to a woman. They don't understand what you're driving at—those of the banking classes anyhow. I told her she could stick to Beauleigh Court, since it would only be a white elephant to me with my six hundred a year, and go on ruling the County. But I was going to clear out, and I couldn't help saying that I hoped her path and mine would never cross again."