"I won't!" exclaimed Lulu passionately.
At that, her father, with a look of utter astonishment at her presumption, took her by the hand and led her into the house, upstairs and to her own room.
"My daughter," he said, "I must be obeyed. I could not have believed you would be so naughty and disobedient so soon after my return to you, for I thought you loved me."
He paused for a reply, and Lulu burst out with passionate vehemence, "You don't love me, papa! I knew you wouldn't when you got a new wife. I knew she'd steal all your love away from your own children!"
In that moment of fierce, ungovernable anger all Vi's sweet kindness was forgotten and old prejudices returned in full force.
The captain was too much shocked and astonished to speak for a moment. He had not dreamed that his child possessed so terrible a temper.
"You were never more mistaken, Lulu," he said at length in a moved tone; "I never loved my children better than I love them now. Are you not sorry for your rebellious reply to me a moment since? will you not tell me so, and do at once what I have bidden you?"
"No; I'll never ask her pardon!"
"You will stay in this room in solitary confinement until you do, though it should be all summer," he said firmly, went out, locked the door on the outside, and put the key into his pocket.
Zoe and Rosie had hastened away the moment the captain appeared upon the scene in the veranda, and as he led Lulu into the house Violet burst into tears.