"Thank you for what you have told me," said Mr. Bellamie, rising and looking into his hat; and then, succumbing to the desire to add the final artistic touch: "I understand you to have said that you were married to Miss Fitzalan in Hendon church, and that your daughter married Mr. Harold Lascelles, who disappeared in an unaccountable fashion in Lausanne?"
"No, no," cried Weevil despairingly. He was tired and had put aside his manuscript. "I never said that. You have got it quite wrong. I was married to Miss Fitzalan in St. Michael's, Brentor, and our daughter Boodles married Philip Lascelles—captain as he now is—at Hendon, and Tita was baptised in St. George's, Hanover Square, and then went to Lausanne to that hotel where Gubbings wrote his history, and there she disappeared—no, not Boodles, but her mother Tita. But she may be alive still. She may turn up some day."
"Then how about Father Lascelles?" suggested Mr. Bellamie.
"Why, he married my daughter Tita," said Weevil rather crossly. "And now he is in British Columbia at his mission. He won't come back to England again. Boodles doesn't know of his existence, but I shall tell her when she is twenty-one."
The visitor smiled rather sadly, and after a moment's hesitation put out his hand. Old Weevil had been turned inside out, and there was nothing in him but a foolish loving heart. Mr. Bellamie understood the position exactly. There was a mystery about the little girl's birth, and it was probably a shameful one, and on that account the old man had concocted his lying story, not for his own sake, but for hers. Mr. Bellamie could not feel angry at the queer shaking figure, with tragedy inside and comedy on its face. Boodles was his all, the only thing he had to love, and he was prepared to do anything which he thought might ensure her happiness. There was something splendid about his lies, which the visitor had to admire although they had been prepared to dupe him. It was not a highly moral proceeding, but it was an artistic one; and Mr. Bellamie was able to forgive anything that was artistic.
"Good-bye," he said, in a perfectly friendly way. "I hope you will come and see me at Tavistock, and look at your tors from my windows."
Weevil returned thanks effusively, happy in the belief that he had played his part well; but it was characteristic of him that his thoughts should be for Boodles rather than for himself. "If you would let her come and see you sometimes it would make her happy. It's a dull life for the little maid here, and she is so bright and full of laughter. I think she laughs too much, and to-day I told her so. There is a lot of cruelty in this world, Mr. Bellamie, and I want to keep her from it. The man who makes a little maid miserable deserves all the cruelty that there is, but it shan't touch Boodles if I can put myself before her and keep it off. I could not see her suffer, I couldn't hear her laugh ring false. I would rather see her dead."
Mr. Bellamie walked away slowly. He had prepared a mild revenge, but he did not execute it. He had intended to tell Weevil a story of a man who took a dog out to sea that he might drown it; but while fastening a stone to its neck the boat overturned, the man was drowned, while the dog swam safely to shore. He thought Weevil might be able to interpret the parable. But when he heard those last words, and saw the love and tenderness on that queer grinning face, he said no more. He walked away slowly, with his eyes upon the ground.