JOHN FARNABY,--I have always suspected that you had something to do with the disappearance of our child. I know for certain now that you deliberately cast your infant daughter on the mercy of the world, and condemned your wife to a life of wretchedness. “Don’t suppose that I have been deceived! I have spoken with the woman who waited by the garden-paling at Ramsgate, and who took the child from your hands. She saw you with me at the lecture; and she is absolutely sure that you are the man. “Thanks to the meeting at the lecture-hall, I am at last on the trace of my lost daughter. This morning I heard the woman’s story. She kept the child, on the chance of its being reclaimed, until she could afford to keep it no longer. She met with a person who was willing to adopt it, and who took it away with her to a foreign country, not mentioned to me yet. In that country my daughter is still living, and will be restored to me on conditions which will be communicated in a few days’ time. “Some of this story may be true, and some of it may be false; the woman may be lying to serve her own interests with me. Of one thing I am sure--my girl is identified, by means known to me of which there can be no doubt. And she must be still living, because the interest of the persons treating with me is an interest in her life. “When you receive this letter, on your return from business to-night, I shall have left you, and left you for ever. The bare thought of even looking at you again fills me with horror. I have my own income, and I mean to take my own way. In your best interests I warn you, make no attempt to trace me. I declare solemnly that, rather than let your deserted daughter be polluted by the sight of you, I would kill you with my own hand, and die for it on the scaffold. If she ever asks for her father, I will do you one service. For the honour of human nature, I will tell her that her father is dead. It will not be all a falsehood. I repudiate you and your name--you are dead to me from this time forth. “I sign myself by my father’s name-- “EMMA RONALD.” She had said herself that she was unwilling to shock Amelius. This was the reason. After thinking a little, she sealed and directed the letter. This done, she unlocked the wooden press which had once contained the baby’s frock and cap, and those other memorials of the past which she called her “dead consolations.” After satisfying herself that the press was empty, she wrote on a card, “To be called for by a messenger from my bankers”--and tied the card to a tin box in a corner, secured by a padlock. She lifted the box, and placed it in front of the press, so that it might be easily visible to any one entering the room. The safe keeping of her treasures provided for, she took the sealed letter, and, ascending the stairs, placed it on the table in her husband’s dressing-room. She hurried out again, the instant after, as if the sight of the place were intolerable to her.