hich of course he did.

"And finally the stranger said that he had a daughter that he would like
to introduce, and asked this man to come with him a mile or so, and if
he liked the girl he would pay him to marry her. They started off and
found the girl. She was a mulatto or octoroon as they say, and as
pretty as a red wagon. You see the stranger was pure white and from New
Orleans; but the mother of the girl was a slave and they say kind of
coffee colored. And the upshot of it was that the stranger offered this
man $2500 to marry the octoroon. What he wanted to do was to place her
well. He didn't want her to run the chance of ever being a slave, as she
might be in the South. He was her father and he naturally had a father's
feeling for her, even if she was an octoroon. And this stranger said
that he had been around town and the country for some days looking at
prospective husbands and making some inquiry, and that he had found no
one to equal this man. The man liked the octoroon, the octoroon liked
the man. And they struck a bargain. The man got his $2500; he married
the girl on the spot. The stranger disappeared, and was never seen or
heard of again. It all happened right there. The man bought land, he got
rich. He was one of the best men I ever knew, and one of my best
friends. The octoroon died in childbirth, leaving a daughter still
living and in this town. The man died recently. His name was James
Miles. He was your father. And Zoe is your half-sister, and wants to
share in the estate, and that's why I sent for you."

The flies began a louder buzzing at the window. The heat had increased.
I looked through the open door and saw a man fall over, whether from
heat or cholera I could not tell. I was by now weary and faint. I said:
"I do not know what to say now. If we can agree, I mean if we are
allowed to agree, Zoe and I will have no trouble. I am getting faint.
And I shall come again." With that I arose and walked weakly from the
room.

CHAPTER VIII

What were my thoughts after all? Was I ashamed of my kinship with Zoe?
With this human being who had nursed me so tenderly through my illness?
Did I begrudge her the interest which she had, of right, with me in our
father's estate? She was as closely connected to him by ties of blood as
I was. These things I reflected upon as I felt course through me a deep
undercurrent of regret.

Was it my mother? Her face came before me as I had learned to know it
from