Her face had a worn, strained look that might have touched him at another time, but he was too angry to notice.
"No excuse or reason at all?"
"No, Father."
He moved toward the opening. "A train goes in an hour and a half, you will come straight back with me this moment," he said, in an even voice. "I shall take precautions to have you watched at school since you cannot be trusted. You will not return home for the Christmas holidays, and probably not for those of the following June."
It was as bad as a sentence of death. The room swam before the girl's eyes, there was a singing and rushing in her ears.
"Come at once," the Captain said. Judy gave a little caught breath; it tickled her throat and she began to cough.
Such terrible coughing, a paroxysm that shook her thin frame and made her gasp for breath. It lasted two or three minutes, though she put her handkerchief to her mouth to try to stop it.
She was very pale when it ceased, and he noticed the hollows in her cheeks for the first time.
"You had better come to the house first," he said, less harshly, "and see if Esther has any cough stuff."
Then in his turn he caught his breath and grew pale under his bronze.