“A few days later,” Lindsay went on, “Letitia decided to set off on an errand of mercy.” She paused. “I think you can probably guess, Rowland, what she discovered. But oddly enough, it was not something she herself had ever foreseen, and so she was profoundly shocked, even appalled. It took her a long time to find the house, which was dirty and dilapidated, a rooming house in an area to the north of the French Quarter, an area most whites shunned. When she finally reached the house, the front door was open; there were no doorbells, and no nameplates. There was an elderly man sitting on the stoop, drinking bourbon. He said that Marie-Thérèse and her husband lived there, in a back room on the top floor. Letitia could hear a baby crying as she mounted the stairs. At first she assumed the noise was coming from one of the other lodgers’ rooms. Then she realized, as she reached the top of the stairs. The door to Marie-Thérèse’s room was open, as if someone had only just returned—she crossed to the doorway and stopped, without speaking. Marie-Thérèse was huddled in a bed on the far side of the room. She was nursing a tiny baby, trying to persuade it to feed. Bending over her, and with his arm around her shoulders, was her brother, Jean-Paul. Letitia said that she knew instantly, knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he was the father of this child.

“She was on the point of leaving before they even realized she was there. Then something stopped her: she could hear from the way in which the baby was crying that it was ill—Letitia had four children of her own. She could see that Marie-Thérèse was painfully thin and looked sickly. She could see tenderness and fear in the way Jean-Paul spoke to mother and child, and she was ashamed of her own immediate reaction. She was on the point of speaking, of suggesting they send for a doctor—her own doctor, if necessary. Then Jean-Paul looked up and saw her. His expression was so terrible that she found she dared not speak. Instead, she put down the basket of fruits she had brought with her, knowing the gift was absolutely inappropriate now. She was watched, in silence, by Jean-Paul, whose face was rigid with anger and scorn. She took out all the money she had with her and placed it in the basket. Then she turned, and left without a word.

“And that was almost the very end of the story,” Lindsay said, meeting Rowland’s troubled gaze. “Letitia never saw brother or sister again. For some six months after that, she continued to send money to them by mail. It was never acknowledged; she never knew if it was received. Later that year she heard from her maid that brother and sister had left New Orleans. But when she asked about the baby, the maid denied all knowledge of it, so Letitia became concerned. She wondered if the baby could have died. She worried that it might have been adopted, or fostered, or put in a home. She made many inquiries, all fruitless, and finally went to the convent, where she was received by the Mother Superior. This woman confirmed that Marie-Thérèse had had a child—a male child. She would say nothing as to the question of the child’s father, and she denied all knowledge of the child’s present whereabouts. Marie-Thérèse was unmarried. Dead or alive, she said, the child of such a union could not be her concern.