“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.”