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—"