Even that much might have been found out by the post-mark, only she had been too much taken by surprise to examine it.
It ran as follows:-- 'DEAR HESTER,-- 'Tell those whom it may concern, that I have left Monkshaven for ever.

No one need trouble themselves about me; I am provided for.
Please to make my humble apologies to my kind friends, the Messrs Foster, and to my partner, William Coulson.

Please to accept of my love, and to join the same to your mother.

Please to give my particular and respectful duty and kind love to my aunt Isabella Robson.

Her daughter Sylvia knows what I have always felt, and shall always feel, for her better than I can ever put into language, so I send her no message; God bless and keep my child.