It was no longer, 'Who struck Billy Patterson ?" but 'Who stole Henry Witherspoon ?' Once I saw your father in New Orleans.

He had come to identify his boy; but he went away with another consignment added to his large stock of disappointment.

Finally all hope was apparently abandoned and even the newspapers ceased to find you.
"Your father and mother now live in Chicago.

George Witherspoon is one of the great merchants of that city, and is more than a millionaire.
This is why I have so often told you that one day you would be worth money.

You were young and could afford to wait; I was old, and to me the present was everything, and you were the present.
"For some time I have been threatened with sudden death; I have felt it at night when you were asleep; and now I have written a confession which for years I irresolutely put aside from day to day.