Part 6

She laughed--it was characteristic of her, Doris found, to laugh when others would cry. "And I had been so puzzled," Alice continued, "as to how I should be able to find the means of subsistence for us both. For I had long known Norman hadn't another five-pound-note that he could put his hands upon. I looked in his purse often, when he was asleep, and in the secret drawer of his writing-table, which he uses as a cash-box, and which he fondly imagines no one can open except himself. Don't look so shocked! Motive is everything, and I don't pry about from curiosity, but simply to keep the dear old fellow alive and myself incidentally. Oh, where was I?" she paused for a moment in order to recover breath, for she talked with great rapidity. "Oh, I know, I was saying we had come to the end of our resources. I had sold my watch and my hair--oh, yes, I didn't mind that. It is much less trouble now it is short, though I have to put it up in curlers at night, which makes it rather spiky to sleep upon. However, I am always so tired that I can sleep on anything. And, to cut a long story short, I sold everything I could lay my hands upon that Norman would not be likely to miss. Then I saw in a magazine, in the Answers to Correspondents, that very striking imitation oil paintings could be made in a certain way, which would sell well amongst ignorant, uncultured people, and, knowing what numbers of such folk there are, I determined to try to make them." She paused for breath.

Doris said nothing. Her blue eyes were fixed upon the other's face and she was reading it, and reading also between the lines of her story as she listened to her talk.

"I practised the work at home first," said Alice, "until I could do it properly, and had secured a few customers. But I was nearly found out, for that dear old stupid brother of mine must needs take it into his head that a very old engraving he wanted was in the attic--it wasn't, Doris! Pity me! I had turned it into one of my oil-paintings, and it had been sold for five shillings! Norman went to search in the attic, and was amazed to find lots of my things, pot-paint, and so on, about the place, which made him almost suspicious for a time. But, happily, his painting absorbed him again, and he forgot about the queer things in the attic. However, I thought it would be better to avoid such a risk in the future, and so went, one morning, to search for a garret which I could rent, and in which I should be able to work by day. When I had fixed upon this one, and it was settled that I should have it, I had to make some excuse to Norman for my long absences from home--don't ask me what I said; I mean to tell him the whole truth one day, and then, perhaps, he'll despise me! I cannot help that. It doesn't matter about me." She tossed her head, as if dismissing the idea at once. "What does matter," she continued very earnestly, "is, that I am maintaining my dear old Norman, while he is painting his beautiful picture. He will live, and his picture will be painted--and only I shall be in disgrace. I don't care!" but tears were in her eyes.

"Disgrace!" Doris leaned forward and caught hold of the small hands, hard and discoloured with work and paint. "Disgrace! I should think he will honour you, for your love and cleverness and self-sacrifice. He will say you have made him. He will thank God for such a sister."

But the other shook her head. "You don't know Norman," she said. "He would not mind dying, and he could give up finishing his picture sooner than endure the thought that I had 'gulled' that poor, stupid, credulous British Public--at least the uneducated section of it. He has a great reverence for truth and sincerity, and he hates and abhors a lie and a sham."

"Why do you do it, then?"

"I am forced," returned Alice plaintively. "We _must_ live. And I want him to finish his picture, yes, and others. I hope he will have more than one in the Academy next year. I want him to be great--a great artist, recognised by all the world."

"How you must love him!" exclaimed Doris. "And what faith you have in his gift for painting!"

"I have no one except him," said Alice, simply. "He is father, mother, and brother to me. And he has a great gift. I believe he will win fame, and be one of the celebrities of the age--if I can keep him alive meanwhile with my pot-boilers. But now about yourself, will you help me?"

"Certainly. Only too gladly. I also have a most excellent reason for earning money."

"What is it? Have you any one depending upon you? A parent perhaps? Or a brother or sister?"

"No, I have no one like that. I stand alone!" Doris sighed deeply. When Alice was talking of her brother she had said to herself, "If I had only a relation to work for like that how happy I should be!"

"Poor Doris!--you will allow me to call you Doris, won't you?--you shall never stand alone any more. I will be your friend."

"Will you? But perhaps you wouldn't, if you knew all. I am under a cloud, and I cannot--cannot tell you everything."

Alice looked quickly and searchingly at her, as the unhappy words fell slowly, tremulously from her lips; and there was that in Doris's expression which reassured the artist's sister.

"Tell me nothing if you prefer," she said, "but come and work with me every day here. You shall be well paid, and you will have my friendship----"

"Which will be worth more than the pay!" cried Doris delightedly. "Oh, how glad I am! How very glad I am! I thank you a thousand times!" In the intensity of her gratitude she raised the other's hand to her lips.

Deeply touched, Alice threw her arms round her neck and kissed her. "Now we are friends," she said, "and chums! We shall get through lots of work together."

When they were a little calmer Doris explained the process, as she called it, by which her "pot-boilers" were made. She bought prints, both plain and coloured, and mounted them on stretched canvas frames, or on thick mill-boards, being very careful to exclude all air bubbles from between the board and the paper. Then she carefully rubbed the edges with sandpaper, in order to conceal the edge of paper; and afterwards the surface was covered with a solution of prepared gelatine, upon which the picture was easily coloured with paint, and made to look as much as possible like a genuine oil-painting. The coloured prints were less trouble, because they had simply to be painted as they really were underneath the gelatine. The plain prints, on the other hand, required taste and judgment in the selection of colour and its arrangement.

Doris was able to do this last extremely well, as she knew how to paint much better than Alice, who had never attempted anything of the sort before she embarked on her present undertaking. For Alice had only watched her brother painting, and his method was widely different from hers. The dealers who bought her pictures paid L2 a dozen for them, and took them away to frame and sell for at least fifteen shillings or L1 each. That the sale of them was good was evidenced by the dealers' quick return to the garret with further orders.

As for the business arrangement between the girls, Alice began by giving Doris a weekly salary for assisting her; but as they prospered more and more, the arrangement was altered, and Doris received a third of all the profits they made--more she would not take, for, as she said, she brought no capital into the business, nor connection, as did Alice.

Weeks and months passed away, whilst the two who worked together in Mrs. Austin's garret became sincerely and devotedly attached to each other. Alice often talked freely to Doris of her beloved artist brother, and told how when one beautiful picture was finished, he began another, in the hope that he would have two or three ready for the Royal Academy the next year. But Doris never told her secret, for her dread lest Alice should turn from her if she knew of her father's crime was always sufficient to close her mouth about the past; and neither could she tell of the great aim of her life which was to make at least some little reparation to Bernard Cameron, as to do so would necessitate the sad disclosure of how he had been robbed. She was therefore very reticent, which sometimes chafed and irritated Alice, who was, as we have seen, so very frank.

But the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love. And after every little coolness the two became more devoted to each other than ever.

*CHAPTER XI.*

*AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.*

Have hope, though clouds environ now, And gladness hides her face in scorn; Put thou the shadow from thy brow, No night but hath its morn. SCHILLER.

It was a dull Sunday in November, cold, too, and damp and comfortless. Grey was the prevailing colour out-of-doors; the clouds were grey, so, too, were the leafless trees and bushes in Kew Gardens,--a dirty, brownish grey. And grey appeared the pale-faced Londoners, who sought in the nation's gardens for recreation and beauty.

In the Palm House certainly there was vivid, beautiful green in the fine trees and tropical plants collected there. It was very warm, too, and over the faces of those who entered tinges of colour spread and stayed, whilst smiles broke out, like sunshine illuminating all around. But it was too enervating to remain there long, and Bernard Cameron, who had wandered alone through the place, not excepting the high galleries, hurried out of the house at last, and breathed more freely when once more outside in the damp greyness of the gardens.

"It is a heated, unnatural, artificial life in there," he said to himself, "and does not appeal to me as does the beauty of the Temperate House, with its healthy green in trees and plants, and, at this time of the year, its masses of brightly coloured chrysanthemums."

He walked off quickly in the direction of the Temperate House, looking closely at all those he met or passed upon the way. "I never see Doris," he said to himself. "I never, never see her! She is not among the workers in London, so far as I can find out--though certainly the field is so vast that I have scarcely touched it in my search for her--neither is she in any pleasure resort. Sometimes I think she must have left London, and that she may have returned to Yorkshire. But I, having obtained a situation at a school at Richmond, must remain here for the present. Oh, Doris! Doris! Why did you leave me? Could you not have trusted my love for you? Why, oh, why did you send me that cruel message? No doubt mother had irritated you, yet I had given you nothing but love!" The greyness of the day seemed concentrated in his despairing face as he said this. He looked ten years older than he did on that bright, glad evening--his last happy day--when he proposed to Doris upon the hill at Askern Spa. His clothes were a little worn and untidy. He had grown thin, and there were sharp lines indicative of care and anxiety upon his face. His dark brown hair was longer, too, than he used to wear it, and he had all the appearance of one who had come down in the world after having had an unusually sharp tussle with fortune.

He had been wandering about for hours that Sunday, having a day's leave of absence from the school, and he felt tired and disheartened, for wherever he went he looked for Doris, and nowhere could he find her. He was, therefore, glad when, upon entering the Temperate House, he was able to find a vacant seat, where he could rest undisturbed. It was most people's luncheon time, and there were not many in the House just then--the other seats were occupied, certainly, but they were a little distance off. Bernard felt the comparative seclusion very pleasant; he closed his eyes in order to rest them, although, indeed, the green around was very refreshing to look upon, and, once again, he fell into a reverie--a sad one now, for he was thinking of his mother, who was so hard and bitter about Doris and her parents. Terrible had been the scene when, in spite of Mrs. Cameron's earnest request that he should do so, Bernard refused to prosecute John Anderson.

"Then you will be as bad as he!" cried the incensed woman. "You will be compounding a felony," she went on wildly. "You will be breaking the law of the land."

"Nay, nay, mother. Come," he answered, "look at the matter reasonably. My prosecuting Mr. Anderson will not restore the money to me."

"But it will cause him to be punished," she exclaimed. "That is what we want--we want him to be made to suffer."

"_I_ do not want him to surfer."

"You're so foolish, Bernard, so very foolish!" screamed Mrs. Cameron, scarcely knowing what she said. "It's that daughter of his you are thinking about. I know it is. You are perfectly infatuated with her."

"Will you please keep her out of this discussion?" asked Bernard.

But his mother was unreasonable, and would drag Doris in, time after time, telling him that she was a chip of the same block as John Anderson, saying, "Like father, like daughter," and declaring that she would never consent to his marrying Doris if there were not another woman in the kingdom.

Bernard was as patient as he could possibly be, but at length, finding it impossible to endure any more such talk, he caught up his hat and went out, with his mother's parting words ringing in his ears.

"Unless you prosecute that rogue, John Anderson, and give me your promise that you will never marry his daughter, my house shall be your home no longer: you shall not sleep another night under my roof!"

Hard words! stinging words! They seemed to ring in Bernard's ears again, as, sitting there on a seat in the central walk of the Temperate House in Kew Gardens under the shade of a fine Norfolk Island pine, he thought about them sadly. No wonder was it that when they were uttered they drove him immediately--and he thought for ever--from his mother's house. Since then he had come to London and obtained an ill-paid assistant mastership in a suburban school, and now he spent all his time searching for Doris, yet in vain. "I have lost her," he said to himself, "I have lost her in this huge metropolis. Yet I forbore to prosecute her father for her sake: and for her sake I am an outcast from home, a mere usher in a school, earning my daily bread in the outskirts of this city!"

A great longing to see the girl he loved once more filled his whole heart; he longed to see her inexpressibly.

And just then she came. Talk about telepathy, about magnetism, about the hypnotism of will as people may, can anyone explain how it is that immediately before a longed-for person, or a longed-for letter arrives, that person or that letter is prominently present in the yearning mind? The same thing is seen intensified in answers to prayers. The one who prays longs unutterably for the boon he asks. It is given; and he thanks God and knows that he has received an answer to prayer. And it may also be that He Who alone knows the heart of man, is continually answering the unspoken prayers of those others who long unutterably for those things which yet they do not ask in words.

So Doris came, walking straight down the central path in the Temperate House, talking to Alice Sinclair, or rather listening, whilst Alice prattled to her about the trees and flowers.

"Look! See, there is a poor tired Londoner asleep," said the merry voice. "He has been somebody's darling once," she added in a lower tone, which Bernard could just hear.

"Hush! He will hear you. Why--oh!----" Doris opened her eyes wide, a look of apprehension came into them, and she reeled as if she would have fallen.

"Doris! Doris!" With a glad cry Bernard sprang to his feet, holding out his hands. "Doris!"

The girl recovered her presence of mind first. She touched Bernard's hands for a moment, and then, releasing them, observed to Alice, with forced calmness, "This gentleman is an old acquaintance of mine from Yorkshire."

"An acquaintance! Oh, Doris!" Bernard's voice expressed his chagrin, nay, more, his consternation. He had found Doris at last. But she was changed: she was no longer his Doris. He had slipped out of her life, and she had adapted herself to the altered circumstances. Glancing at her quickly, sharply, he perceived that she looked well, and even happy. The unwonted exercise and the fresh air of Kew had done her good and brought a pretty colour into her cheeks. She was with her dear friend Alice, and the delightfulness of mutual sympathy and love had caused her eyes to sparkle and her step to regain its buoyancy. Besides, the meeting with her lover, calmly though she appeared to take it, had brought back a tide of young life in her veins and imparted to her a sweet womanliness. Altogether she looked quite unlike the drooping, heartbroken Doris whom Bernard had last seen, and whom he had been picturing to himself as unchanged.

"Allow me to introduce you to my friend, Miss Sinclair," said Doris, disregarding his protest. "Mr. Cameron, Miss Sinclair," she said, adding, "Mr. Cameron comes from Yorkshire."

Alice bowed and held out her hand, in her usual good-natured way.

"We thought you were a poor, tired Londoner," she remarked with a smile, "and lo! you come from the North."

"I live in Richmond now," Bernard remarked quietly. "I have a--position in a school there."

"Indeed?" Alice was regarding him critically. He was a gentleman, handsome, too, and he looked good. But he was also rather shabby: there was no doubt about that; and she did not think Doris looked particularly pleased to see him. There was an expression of apprehension in her eyes which Alice had never seen there before.

"Do you live here?" Bernard asked Doris.

"No, no. We have only come over for the day."

"Where are you living?"

Doris made no reply. She stopped the answer Alice was about to make by a beseeching look.

"We have not any time to spare for visitors," she said, rather lamely.

"Will you allow me to walk with you a little way?" he asked. "Or perhaps," he hesitated, looking at Alice uneasily--"perhaps you will sit here with me a little while? There is--is--room for three on this seat."

Alice good-naturedly came to his assistance. "Doris," she said, in her brisk, businesslike way, "sit down and have a chat with your friend while I go over there to the chrysanthemum house to look at the flowers. I do so love chrysanthemums."

"And so do I," said Doris quickly. "I will come too."

"Doris!" Bernard's exclamation was pitiful.

Alice felt for him, but concluding Doris did not wish to be left, she said briskly, "We will all go there. Come on."

Accordingly they all went to look at the chrysanthemums, amongst which they talked mere commonplaces for a little while.

Bernard was miserably disappointed. Doris was uncomfortable and frightened--the shadow of her father's sin seemed to rest over her, filling her with shame. She did not know whether Bernard was prosecuting her father or not, and feared that he might say something which would betray the wretched secret to Alice. Even if he regretted the way he shrank from her when hearing of her father's misappropriation of his money, or if he wished, as seemed evident, to renew their former relations, she could not and would not ruin his life, as his mother had said she would ruin it by marrying him. Poor he was, and shabby. Not a detail of this escaped her--his worn clothes and baggy trousers touched her deeply; but at least he bore an unblemished and honourable name. Was she to smirch it? Was she to bring to him, as his mother had said, a dowry of shame? No, no. His mother's words were still ringing in her ears.

Stung beyond endurance by the remembrance, Doris raised her head and confronted Bernard proudly.

"Mr. Cameron," she said, "you must see--I mean, do you think that it is quite right to--accompany us--when----"

"When I am not wanted," he suggested, bitterly.

"I did not say that exactly. But----"

"You meant it." Bernard's eyes flashed. He, too, was stung now. "I will say 'Good-bye,'" he said, raising his hat.

The girls bowed, and, turning away, walked quietly out of the great house, leaving Bernard to return to his seat a crushed and miserable man.

He thought that it was all over between him and Doris. His mother had spoken the truth in saying the girl had declared she would never marry him. He need not have grieved his mother by refusing to prosecute her father: he need not have lost his home for that. Doris no longer loved him; she no longer loved him at all. He had lost his money, and he had lost Doris. That was the worst blow that had ever befallen him; nothing mattered now, nothing at all: he was in despair. It was far worse to have met Doris and found her altogether estranged from him than not to have met her at all.

"She wasn't like Doris," he said to himself, miserably. "She wasn't like my Doris at all. It might have been another girl; it might have been another girl altogether." The hot tears came into his eyes, and he buried his face in his hands that others might not see them.

"Oh, don't, don't be so unhappy!" said a voice in his ear, suddenly. "Didn't you notice that her manner was forced--unnatural?"

"Oh!" Bernard rose, and stood looking wonderingly into Alice Sinclair's face. It was full of kindness, and seemed to him, then, one of the sweetest faces he had ever seen.

"I have returned," she said in a low, confidential tone, "ostensibly to find a glove I dropped somewhere, but really in order to tell you our address. For I think--that is, I imagine, you might call to see her one of these days."

"Oh, can I? Do you think it is possible?"

"Certainly. This is a free country. Call by all means. Doris was awfully sad a few minutes after we left you. I am sure she was repenting her harshness to you. She was crying, actually crying. And you looked so miserable when we left you, so I thought I might try to help you both."

"You are good!" cried Bernard, taking one of her hands in his, and pressing it warmly.

The next minute he was alone, with an envelope in his hand, upon which was written, "Miss Sinclair, c/o. Mrs. Austin, 3, Haverstock Road, King's Cross, London, N."

"How good she is!" Bernard thought. "And what a difference there is now!--I am no longer in despair." He looked round. What a change had come over everything! The huge conservatory in which he stood was a vast palace of beauty: birds--robins mostly--were hopping about and singing a few notes here and there. The visitors looked very happy, and through the glass he could see gardens that were dreams of loveliness. It was not a dull, grey world now: oh, no, but a very pleasant place, full of boundless possibilities!

*CHAPTER XII.*

*AN ARTIST'S WRATH.*

A man may buy gold too dear. _Proverb_.

"What does this mean, Alice? Is it here you work? What are you doing?"

"Oh, Norman! You here? Oh, dear!" Alice looked up in dismay from her work on the floor of the garret to the tall figure standing in the doorway, with head bent to prevent its being scalped by the low top. "You shouldn't have come, dear," she faltered.

"Shouldn't have come! I think it is time I did come! Great Scott! What are you murdering here?" He had reached the middle of the room with two strides, and was stooping over a brilliantly limned "oil-painting" Alice had just finished, looking at it with eyes blazing with wrath. "Did you do this?" he demanded. "Did you do this atrocious thing?"

"Yes--yes, Norman, I did," faltered his sister.

"Then I'm ashamed of you! Here, let me put it on the fire-back." Lifting the picture, he strode towards the fireplace with it.

"Don't, Norman! Don't! You must not! It--it is _sold_!"

"Sold!" cried the artist. "What do you mean? Can any one be so debased as to have bought a thing like that?" he demanded.