know where she kept that child during the first five years of its life. I
have reason to think it was in the Ursuline Convent at St. Peter."

"That's easy settled. And you think the father's first name was Jim?"

"She told me that his name was James Delano. Also that he died within the
first year of their marriage, when the child was two months old, during
the voyage to Japan. That may be, but I can see no reason for her
returning here unless he died more recently and the settlement of his
estate demanded her presence."

"Pretty good reasoning, particularly if you are sure she stayed here
until the child was five. Some of them have pretty decent instincts. She
may have made up her mind to give the kid a chance, and returned to her
relations. Of course we must assume that they knew nothing of her life."

"I am positive they did not. But there had been some sort of
estrangement. I have been given to understand that it was because she
married an American. Of course she may not have written to them at all
for six or seven years. Her story is that she was visiting other
relatives in a place called Holbrook Centre, Vermont, and met this man
and married him. Then that he was detained by business in San Francisco
for several months, and the child born here."

"Good commonplace story. Just the sort that is never questioned. Of
course if she did not correspond with her family during all that time she
could adopt any name for her return to respectability that she chose.
Delano wasn't it? That's certain. What line do you intend to take? After
I've delivered the facts?"