gentleman, Brother Copas, and will not misunderstand! I have taken a
great liking for the child, and she will ask questions if I suddenly
desert her. You see the fix? . . . Besides, Nurse Turner--I hope I
am not becoming like one of these people, but I must say it--Nurse
Turner has not a nice mind."

"There we get at it," said Brother Copas. "As a fact, you were far
from reading my thoughts just now. They did not (forgive me) concern
themselves with you or your wisest line of conduct. You are a grown
woman, and know well enough that honesty will take care of its own in
the end. I was thinking rather of Corona. As you say, she has laid
some hold upon the pair of us. She has a pathetic belief in all the
inmates of St. Hospital--and God pity us if our corruption infects
this child! . . . You take me?"

Nurse Branscome looked at him squarely.

"If I could save her from that!"

"You would risk appearances?"

"Gladly. . . . Will you show me the letter?"

Brother Copas shook his head.

"You must take it on faith from me for a while . . . at any rate
until I find out who in St. Hospital begins her 'w's' with a curl
like a ram's horn. Did you leave the child with her father?"

"No; she had run out to the kitchen garden. Since she has discovered
it she goes there regularly twice a day, morning and evening.
I can't think why, and she won't tell. She is the queerest child."

The walled kitchen garden of St. Hospital lies to the south, between
the back of the "Nunnery" and the River Mere. It can be reached from
the ambulatory by a dark, narrow tunnel under the nurses' lodgings.
The Brethren never went near it. For years old Battershall, the
gardener, had dug there in solitude--day in, day out--and had grown
his vegetables, hedged in from all human intercourse, nor grumbling
at his lot.

Corona, exploring the precincts, had discovered this kitchen garden,
found it to her mind, and thereafter made free of it with the
cheerfullest _insouciance_. The dark tunnel, to begin with, put her
in mind of some adventure in a fairy tale she could not recall; but
it opened of a sudden and enchantingly upon sunshine and beds of
onions, parsley, cabbages, with pale yellow butterflies hovering.
Old Battershall, too, though taciturn, was obviously not displeased
by her visits. He saw that while prying here and there--especially
among the parsley beds, for what reason he could not guess--the child
stole no fruit, did no