Finally, at nine o'clock in the evening, the gentlemen bring another man into the room. Oliver is taken aback. He had expected to see a brother, but this is the man he met in the market town and later saw looking in his window with Fagin. Mr. Brownlow walks up with papers, informing Monks that although the instruments have been executed in London, it is necessary to review the details here. Monks asks that the business be settled quickly. Mr. Brownlow accordingly opens the session: "This child is your half-brother; the illegitimate son of your father, my dear friend Edwin Leeford, by poor young Agnes Fleming, who died in giving him birth."
Monks sarcastically corroborates this and, as agreed, begins a summary of the matter recorded in the papers. He fills in the details concerning his father's death. Edwin Leeford had left two papers, dated when he first became ill. They were addressed to Mr. Brownlow with the instructions that they not be mailed until after the writer's death.
The first paper was a letter to Agnes Fleming, who was then several months pregnant. The girl had trusted in Leeford's guarded explanation that there was some obstacle to an immediate marriage. He alluded to his gift of a locket and a ring with a blank left for his name to be engraved. The letter was filled with incoherent, repetitious professions of regret and honorable motives. Oliver bursts into tears as Monks pauses in his story.
