"I can tell you, Boodles. I have just found it out," he cried out of the darkness with a miserable sort of triumph. "There has been a lot of scandal about you, which I have never troubled to answer, and Mr. Bellamie has heard it, and finds it easier to believe than what I told him. There is the Brute again. He makes people prefer scandal to the truth. Nobody knows how you came to me, and so they invented a story to suit them. Everybody knows that story, and as I have not denied it Mr. Bellamie believes it is true. I think I'll write to him to-morrow." "How did I come to you?" asked Boodles. "It's a long story," he faltered. "I can't tell you now because I am feeling so tired. I shall have to think about it all night," he muttered. "Why did you make up that queer story about finding me one night at your door?" "That is true. Your father chose that way of sending you to me," he said lamely. "I kept the truth from you because I was afraid you might not want to stay with me if you knew everything. Your father wished you to be kept in ignorance. I was going to tell you on your twenty-first birthday." "You needn't have told me you thought I was a poor woman's child," she said reproachfully. "I am very sorry, darling. I won't do it again," the poor old creature promised. Boodles jumped up, pattered to the window, and flung aside the curtains. The room was flooded at once with moonlight, and she could feel the wind coming through the chinks. Weevil looked up patiently, and she saw his weary old eyes and wrinkled face, ghastly in that light. It struck her he was looking very worn and ill. "You are dreadful tired," she said very tenderly. "Yes, Boodles, the noise of the wind makes me feel very tired." "I am not Boodles now. That was my baby-name. I am Tita. And the others--Katherine, Mary--what are the rest?" "I don't know, dear. I will try and think to-morrow." "I won't tease you, but there is so much I want to know. Poor great big old grand-daddy-man, you look quite dead." He shuffled towards her, put his arms round her, and began to make noises as if he was in pain. "I am tired and weak. That is all, darling, and the rabbit in the trap made me sick. I am weak and old and very tired, and I know I have done no good in my life. Shut it out, my maid--shut it out." It was the prospect which he wanted shut out. They could see the bare stretch of moor, upon it the moon shining, and over it the wind rushing. There is nothing more dreary than a windy moonlit night upon the moor, filled with its own emptiness of sound, suggestive of wild motion and yet motionless, covered with light that is not light. "It is like a lonely life," said Weevil bitterly. Boodles dropped the curtains and tried to laugh. She did not like the look on the old man's face. "The lonely life has gone," she said. "Now we will have some light."