"Tita, we called her Tita for short," he said, glad of one fact of which he was certain. "And my father, Canon Lascelles--really? A real canon, a man with a sort of title?" she cried, with a little joyous gasp. "He's in British Honduras. I think that was the place--" "Alive! My father alive!" cried Boodles. "And you never told me before! Why haven't I seen him? Why doesn't he write to me? Oh, I think you have been cruel to me, telling me those wild stories of how I came to you, keeping the truth from me all these years." Old Weevil sat at her feet, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He was protecting Boodles, giving her happiness, he thought; but when he heard that cry it suggested to him that his false story might bring her in the end more sorrow than the truth. He could not go back now that he had gone so far. A lie is a rapid breeder of lies; and old Weevil, with his lack of memory, and natural instinct for the truth, was a man singularly ill-fitted for fictions. He had overlooked a great many things in his wild desire to make the child happy. It had never occurred to him that she would feel a natural love for her parents. "I wanted to be kind to you, Boodles," he quavered. "I kept the truth from you because there were good reasons." "What were they?" "I can't tell you, darling," he answered truly. "You must not ask me," he said firmly, because she had touched upon a mystery which his inventive faculties were quite incapable of solving. "And my mother--where is she?" "Oh, she is dead," said Weevil cheerfully. He was not going to have any trouble with the mother, and he was sorry he had not killed the father too. "I told you she was drowned mysteriously." "That was your wife, my grandmother. You are not playing with me? You are not deceiving me?" said Boodles pitifully. "I'm trying to tell you, only it is all mixed up. It happened so long ago, and the Brute has worried me so much since that I don't seem able to remember anything very clearly. Your mother went out of the hotel one day, and never came back." "Where?" "Lausanne, the hotel where--" "But she may be alive still," interrupted the child. "Oh no, darling. Quite impossible. She was never heard of again, and it was nearly thirty years ago." "Don't ramble. You are wandering off again. How could it be thirty years ago, when I'm only just eighteen?" Weevil admitted the difficulty, and replied that he had been thinking just then of his wife. She would keep mixing herself up with the girl's mother. "Now I'm getting at it," said Boodles, with a kind of fierce seriousness. "My mother is supposed to be dead. My father is in British Honduras--" "British Guiana," corrected Weevil. "Are you sure?" "Almost certain. I looked it up on the map. I wish I had that piece of paper," the poor old man muttered.