“I was only seventeen years old,” he went on.

“So was she, very nearly, the girl I loved.

Her family had money, and when they learned she was carrying a child, they sent her away out of town to hide it, the way families like that did in those days.

I was told, afterward, that the baby, a boy, had been given up, placed in an institution somewhere.” He paused, gathering himself.

“I searched for him.