With that he must have taken his leave, for quiet assumed possession of everything.  I settled down to the boredom of the afternoon, letting my eyes travel up and down the stripes of the wall-paper.  Up one stripe I went, down the next, and up the third, till I had covered the whole of one wall.  Then I tossed myself on to my other side with an audible groan that gave me but little relief, since there was no one to hear.  The day wore on, and the long streaks of light worked their way round the room, grew ruddier, and climbed up the wall.

Oh, wearisome, wearisome afternoon!  I began to sing quietly to myself such songs as I knew:  “Rule, Brittania,” “God save the King,” and “A Life on the Ocean Wave.”  This I gave up at last, and thought out corking replies that I might have made to the prefects, had my wit been readier.

“Ding-ding-ding!” That was tea.  Would Doe be any less happy when he saw my vacant place, and wonder if I were very ill?  How was Penny feeling, who had lifted up his heel against me?  Might he, together with Stanley and his colleagues, think me dying!  What would Stanley and the prefects do to Doe for his flagrant breach of their edict?  Perhaps at this moment he was being tried by the great Stanley and his Tribunal.  Perhaps even now they had him bent over a chair and were giving him a Prefects’ Whacking.  At any rate, I wished he would walk in his sleep or do something that would bring him to this monotonous sick-room.  Why shouldn’t he?  Like me, he had been immured indoors for ten days; like me, also, he had reasons for being unhealthily excited.

“Ding-ding-ding!” I had closed my eyes when this bell sounded.  It meant Preparation, so it must be getting dark.  I would open my eyes and see.  I did so, and saw nothing except darkness, which made me think I must have dozed.  The sudden view of the darkness frightened me, for I remembered the terror of the preceding night and that, before many hours, the whole world would be silenced in sleep, while I might be wandering in the fearful cellars.  At the thought my lips formed the words:  “O God, don’t make me wake again in the Old Locker Room.  O God, don’t.  I wish I had somebody to talk to.”

As I mechanically uttered this prayer, I began to feel rather strongly that, if I were going to ask God to make this arrangement for me, I ought to do something for Him.  Clearly I must get out of bed and say my prayers properly.  So I stepped on to the floor, reeling dizzily from my enforced recumbence, and knelt by the side of the bed.  Falling into prayers that I knew by heart, and scarcely heeding what I was saying, I prayed (as my mother had taught me to do when I was a little knickerbockered boy) for the whole chain of governesses who had once taken charge of me.  I enumerated them by their nicknames:  “Tooby and Dinky and Soaky and Miss Smith.”  Trapping myself in this mistake, I actually blushed as I knelt there.  I realised that I must be more up to date.  So I prayed for Penny, Freedham, Stanley, Bickerton, and Banana-Skin, but I drew up abruptly at Carpet Slippers.  I couldn’t forgive him.  I felt I ought to, but I couldn’t.  There, on my knees, I thought it all out; and at last light broke upon me.  To forgive didn’t necessarily mean to forgo the punishment.  Yes, I would forgive him and pray for him, but his punishment would go on just the same.