"How is it you have let her remain here so many years?"
"I believed her dead."
"When did you hear that she was living?"
"I was summoned a few weeks ago to the dying bed of a notorious criminal. The dying man told me that he had been employed to run away with my child."
"Ah!" interrupted the detective, "you are Renie's father?"
"The girl is my child."
"And you have all along believed her dead."
"I have all along believed her dead; but the dying man told me that she still lived, that he had placed the infant in charge of a fisherman's wife named Pearce. He told me where the fisherman resided at the time the child was confided to his care, and I at once came here to find her."
"Will you tell me the whole story?"
"I can tell you no more."