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. After Norman Sinclair went away Doris comforted Alice as well as she could, and then both girls set to work to finish the pictures which a dealer would send for that evening. Alice, however, performed her part half-heartedly. Through her ears were still ringing her brother’s fierce denunciation of her employment. It was a crime; she was a cheat, defrauding the ignorant, making them believe bad was good and good was bad; for money she was selling her soul. Oh, it was terrible to remember! Her tears fell down and smeared the brilliant greens and yellows, blues and reds, upon her mill-boards. Doris, seeing what was going on, felt extremely uncomfortable. She imagined that Alice was fretting because her brother had practically turned her out of his house, and her wrath against him increased. But for some time she could not stop working in order to give utterance to her feelings; the men would come soon for the pictures which must be ready for them, and they had to be finished off, or the way they were made would be detected. So the work went on until evening came, and with it the men from the dealers, who packed up the sham oil-paintings and carried them off. Mrs. Austin had been upstairs more than once, to see if her young ladies, as she called them, were ready for tea--which, in those days they usually took together in the sitting-room before Alice went home--and the landlady’s importunity caused them both to leave the garret at length and descend to the sitting-room. "Now, darling, you shall have some tea," said Doris, affectionately. "Sit there in the armchair. I will bring you a cup." She did so, and then, pouring out one for herself, sat down on the stiff horse-hair sofa, and began to make plans for the future. "You and I, Alice," she said, "shall always live together." "Yes," said Alice, slowly, and with a little hesitation, which the other did not appear to notice.