Out of the Past

Out of the Past *Out of the Past* by Eleanor Hooper Coryell (1899) opens with the discovery of a dead woman in St. Cloud, France. Sister Clothilde, a nun from a nursery, finds an American woman named Amy Dinsmore expired on a bed after childbirth, having delivered a son alone. The woman bears two rings engraved "R. W. to Amy Dinsmore. May 10th, 1876." With a young monk named Benedict, Clothilde searches the house, finding money and linen marked "A. D." but no identifying papers. The infant is placed in the nun's care as she departs by steamer. Twenty-one years later, Benedict—now aged and still a humble monk despite his abilities—reflects on his austere life, while Robert Dinsmore, the orphaned child, grows up among strangers, his parentage and father's identity shrouded in mystery and abandonment.