My surprise, indeed, had bereft me of words.

He sipped his wine slowly, and continued.
"Fate has dealt a little hardly with you," he said.

"I am almost a stranger to you, and there are even reasons why you and I could never be friends.

Yet it apparently falls to my lot to supplement the little you know of a very unpleasant portion of your family history.

That rascal of a lawyer who absconded with your money should have told you on your twenty-first birthday." "A pleasant heritage!" I remarked bitterly; "yet I always wanted to know the whole truth." "Here goes, then," he said, filling my glass with wine.