I hate _her_. . . . There!
And now you must take and punish me as much as you please.
What's it going to be?"

She rocked her small body as she looked up with straight eyes,
awaiting sentence.

"You are to go to bed at once, and without any supper," said Brother
Copas, keeping his voice steady on the words he loathed to utter.

Again Corona seemed to weigh them.

"That seems fair enough," she decided. "Are you going to lock me
in?"

"That had not occurred to me."

"You'd better," she advised. "And take the key away in your pocket.
. . . Is that all, Uncle Copas?"

"That is all, Corona. But as for taking the key, you know that I
would far sooner trust to your honour."

"You can trust to _that_, right enough," said she, getting off the
edge of the bed. "I was thinking of daddy. . . . Good night, Uncle
Copas!--if you don't mind, I am going to undress."

Brother Copas withdrew. He shut and locked the door firmly, and made
a pretence, by rattling the key, of withdrawing it from the lock.
But his nerve failed him, and he could not actually withdraw it.
"Suppose the child should be taken ill in the night: or suppose that
her nerve breaks down, and she cries for her father. . . . It might
kill him if he could not open the door instantly. Or, again,
supposing that she holds out until he has undressed and gone to bed?
He will start up at the first sound and rush across the open
quadrangle--Lord knows if he would wait to put on his dressing-gown--
to get the key from me. In his state of health, and with these
nights falling chilly, he would take his death."

So Brother Copas contented himself with turning the key in the wards
and pointing to it.

"She is going to bed," he whispered. "Supperless, you understand.
. . . We must show ourselves stern: it will be the better for her in
the end, and some day she will thank us."

Brother Bonaday eyed the door sadly.

"To be sure, we must be stern," he echoed. As for being thanked for
this severity, it crossed his mind that the thanks must come quickly,
or he would probably miss them. But he muttered again, "To be sure--
to be sure!" as Brother Copas tiptoed away and left him.

On his way back to his lonely rooms, Brother Copas met and exchanged
"Good evenings" with Nurse Branscome.

"You are looking grave," she said.

"You might better say I am looking like a humbug and a fool.
I have just been punishing that child--sending her to bed supperless.
Now cal