“Then it had something to do with me. Let me think. Had it anything—to do with—your watch?... Then it had! And anything to do with that twenty pounds you sent me to the post office?... Yes, it had! You pawned that watch to get me that money. You said you had left it mending. I've heard you say so a dozen times. So this is the lie you meant you'd told over and over again. And all for me! O Mr. Teesdale, I am so sorry—I am—so—sorry.” She had broken down and was sobbing bitterly on his shoulder. The old man stroked her head. “You needn't take it so to heart, Missy dear. Nay, come! Shall I tell you why? Because it wasn't all for you, Missy. I hardly knew you then. Nay, honey, it was all for your dear father—no one else.” The effect of this distinction, made with a very touching sort of pride, was to withdraw Missy's arms very suddenly from the old man's neck, and to leave her sitting and trembling as far away from him as possible, though still in her chair. Her moment was come; but her nerve and her courage, her coolness and steadiness of purpose, where were they now? She braced herself together with a powerful effort. Hours ago she had resolved, under influences that may be remembered, to undeceive the too trustful old man now at her side. To that resolve she still adhered; but as it had since become evident that nothing she could possibly do would lead him to suspect the truth, there was now no way for her but the hardest way of all—that of a full and clean confession. Her teeth were chattering when she began, but Mr. Teesdale understood her to say: “Before you told your lie I had told you a dozen—I spoke hardly a word of truth all the way into Melbourne that day. But there was one great, big, tremendous lie at the bottom of all the rest. And can't you guess what that was? You must guess—I can never tell you—I couldn't get it out.” Mr. Teesdale was very silent. “Yes, I think I can guess,” he said at last, and sadly enough. “Then what was it?” exclaimed Missy in an eager whisper. She was shivering with excitement. “Well, my dear, I suppose it was to do with them friends you had to meet at the theatre. You might have trusted me a bit more, Missy! I shouldn't have thought so much of it, after all.” “Of what?” “Why, of your going to the theatre alone. Wasn't that it, Missy?” The girl moaned. “Oh, no—no! It was something ever so much worse than that.” “Then you weren't stopping with friends at all. Was that it? Yes, you were staying all by yourself at one of the hotels.” “No—no—no. It was ever so much worse than that too. That was one of the lies I told you, but it was nothing like the one I mean.” “Missy,” old David said gravely, “I don't want to know what you mean. I don't indeed! I'd far rather know nothing at all about it.” “But you must know!” cried Missy in desperation. “Why must I?”