Her husband, a sailor, probably had departed on a long voyage.

The lady had a lover--found herself enciente.

She confided in the Widow Lerouge, and, with her assistance, accomplished a clandestine accouchement." He called again.
"Manette, the dessert, and get out!" Certainly such a master was unworthy of so excellent a cook as Manette.
He would have been puzzled to say what he had eaten for diner, or even what he was eating at this moment; it was a preserve of pears.
"But what," murmured he, "has become of the child?
Has it been destroyed?
No; for the Widow Lerouge, an accomplice in an infanticide, would be no longer formidable.

The child has been preserved, and confided to the care of our widow, by whom it has been reared.

They have been able to take the infant away from her, but not the proofs of its birth and its existence.