In time, when he was thirty-one years old, the man acquired new connections. That was fifteen years ago, when Monks was about eleven. Brownlow's friend became intimate with a retired naval officer who had been left alone with two daughters, one only two or three years of age. The elder child was a beautiful girl of nineteen. Within a year, she and Monks's father were pledged to each other.
The man inherited money from a relative who died in Rome, making it necessary for him to go there immediately. Then the heir was fatally stricken in that city. Monks's mother learned of this in Paris and, taking their son with her, went to her estranged husband. The day after she arrived, he died. There was no will, so all of the property went to his wife and their child.
At this stage, Monks seems relieved, but Brownlow continues, saying that before his friend left England on his last journey, he left a portrait of the officer's daughter with Brownlow. At the time, Monks's father talked vaguely about providing for his legal wife and child, before settling outside England. Brownlow never saw the man again or heard from him. Later, Brownlow made an attempt to see the dead man's beloved, but the family had vanished, "Why, or whither, none can tell."
Monk's look of triumph turns to dismay when Brownlow tells him that he was the one who sheltered Oliver until the boy was recaptured by the thieves. Brownlow refers to Oliver's resemblance to the picture of the unfortunate girl. Since he could not recover Oliver, Brownlow decided that the mystery could be clarified only by Monks, who had retired to the West Indies after his mother's death. So Brownlow went there, only to learn that Monks had left, probably for London. Brownlow stubbornly kept up the search without being able to catch up with his quarry — until two hours ago.
