'You and your wife were separated, and she had the boy to live with her, when he was a year old.
You received a communication from her, when you had lived apart a year or two, that the boy was dead; and you believed it ?' 'Of course I did!' returned Snawley.

'Oh the joy of--' 'Be rational, sir, pray,' said Ralph.

'This is business, and transports interfere with it.

This wife died a year and a half ago, or thereabouts--not more--in some obscure place, where she was housekeeper in a family.

Is that the case ?' 'That's the case,' replied Snawley.
'Having written on her death-bed a letter or confession to you, about this very boy, which, as it was not directed otherwise than in your name, only reached you, and that by a circuitous course, a few days since ?' 'Just so,' said Snawley.