The next morning, she had disappeared.

A letter left for me told me that she was going away with that man and would become his wife.

From that time on,--it is now twelve years ago,--I have never heard anything from my child, till your letter came.
"That my daughter is dead, I can well believe, but that she has left a helpless little boy, that I do not believe, for she would have sent such a boy, of whom she had a right to dispose, to me; she knows me, she would have known that I would give him my name, and the remembrance would be wiped away.

But this boy, who has disappeared again at the right time, has been substituted by the music-teacher, who no doubt lives somewhere in this neighborhood, and has done it for the purpose of receiving a sum of money from me.

And now, dear Sir, we are through.