Shiela's idea that was, and it delayed us another few minutes.
I turned to go. Shiela, she was nervous too, but smiling. "Shiela--"
"You're not going back to the ship?"
"But I must--I must."
"No, you're not--and you must not. Here." She had taken the bewaxed and
beribboned package from her little handbag. It was addressed to "Guy
Villard, Esq., Villard Manor, Chatham County, Ga."
"But who is he?"
"Who is he? Who are you?"
"Guy Blaise."
"No, you're not. Open it and read. Or wait, let me read it."
And it is true that not till then did I suspect. I thought that I might
have been his son, or the son of some wild friend, born of a marriage
on the West Coast or other foreign parts. But of this thing I never had
a suspicion.
I was the baby boy picked up in the wreckage of the burning ship. There
were the marriage certificates of my father and mother, and the title
deeds to the Villard estate. It had been a great temptation--he the next
of kin, my father's cousin, and no one knowing. And he, too, feared the
strange blood. But watching my growth, he had come to love me, and
wanted me to love him, and feared my contempt if I should learn. All
this was explained in a letter in a small envelope, written recently and
hastily. Together, Shiela and I, we finished the reading of it:
Though I'm not so sure now that you shouldn't thank me for
withholding your inheritance until the quality of your manhood was
assured.
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