“Forgive me, Captain Bradshaw; I know, at least I can guess, the pain I am causing, but I must do it. Pray sit down, sir, and pray answer my questions. I will ask as few as possible, I will simply relate facts; if I am wrong, stop me.” Captain Bradshaw sank back into his chair, conquered by the steady calmness of his visitor, and buried his face in his hands. “At the end of the year 1829, or at the beginning of 1830, you discovered that she had made a marriage with a person much beneath her. She left the house, and I believe you never saw her again. You never forgave her.” “I did, sir,” the old man said passionately; “I did forgive her. I searched all England through for her, but I never heard of her until, God help me, I heard she was dead.” “Thank God for that at least,” Prescott said. “The man, or one of the men, you employed to trace your daughter was a Bow Street runner named Barton?” “It was,” the old man said, feebly, “though how you should know, I cannot tell.” “Now, Captain Bradshaw, for my last question. This Barton told you, and told you truly, that your daughter was dead; but did he ever tell you she had left a child behind her?” “A child!” the old man almost screamed, “a child! Laura left a child? Don’t say it, don’t say it; have I not been punished enough for my cruelty by knowing that my girl, my only girl, Laura, died of want? And now you say she left a child, a child in misery and want, and I, rolling in wealth, have never helped it; oh, my God, my God, it is too much.” And the old man sank down in his chair, sobbing like a child. Prescott did not interrupt him, indeed he was too much affected at the sight of the old man’s agony to be able to trust himself to speak. At last he said, “It is not so bad as you imagine, sir. The child has been brought up in poverty, but not in want. He has been kindly nurtured and cared for by the poor people in whose house his mother died. All that love and kindness could do for him has been done. As they took the mother in and cared for her and nursed her to the last, so they adopted the child as their own. They never knew who he was. It has been discovered now only by accident. This seal, sir, which was the sole article of value she possessed—do you recognise it?” The old man took it, and his tears fell more gently as he looked at it. “Yes, it was hers,” he said; “I gave it her when she went to school. Poor child, poor child!” Then starting up, he went on, “But why do we wait here?—why do we not go to fetch him?”