"You must not! You shall not! I really---- Upon my word, if you do such things you shall not live with me!" He was in great anger now, the veins upon his temples stood out like cords; he could scarcely refrain from rending into pieces the hateful "frauds" upon which he was looking.
A cry of pain escaped from his sister's lips. She was pale as death. Her brother had never been angry with her before. Their love for each other had been ideal.
Then Doris spoke, turning from her easel and looking up at the artist with flashing eyes.
"There are vipers," she said, "which sting the hands that feed them. Alice, dear," she added, with a complete change of tone and manner, "come to me." She held out her arms, and Alice flew into them, clinging to her and crying as if her heart would break. "Go!" said Doris to the artist, pointing to the door. "Go, and live alone with your works of art. You cannot recognise or appreciate the self-denial and love which is in the heart of one of the noblest sisters in the world!"
"'GO! YOU CANNOT APPRECIATE SELF-DENIAL AND LOVE.'"
Norman Sinclair went out of the room as meekly as a lamb, all his wrath leaving him as he did so. Indeed, to tell the truth, he felt very small and despicable, as he mentally looked at himself with Doris Anderson's eyes, and saw a man, who had been fed for many months by the hard, if mistaken, toil of his young sister, threatening her with the loss of her home in his house if she would not abandon her only source of income.
CHAPTER XIII.
CONSCIENCE MONEY.
No one should act so as to take advantage of the ignorance of his neighbours.--CICERO.