Nicholas understood the tone of triumph in which this interrogatory was
put; but remembering the necessity of supporting his assumed character,
produced a scrap of paper purporting to contain a list of some subjects
for drawings which his employer desired to have executed; and with which
he had prepared himself in case of any such contingency.

'Oh!' said Mr Bray. 'These are the orders, are they?'

'Since you insist upon the term, sir, yes,' replied Nicholas.

'Then you may tell your master,' said Bray, tossing the paper back
again, with an exulting smile, 'that my daughter, Miss Madeline Bray,
condescends to employ herself no longer in such labours as these; that
she is not at his beck and call, as he supposes her to be; that we don't
live upon his money, as he flatters himself we do; that he may give
whatever he owes us, to the first beggar that passes his shop, or add it
to his own profits next time he calculates them; and that he may go to
the devil for me. That's my acknowledgment of his orders, sir!'

'And this is the independence of a man who sells his daughter as he has
sold that weeping girl!' thought Nicholas.

The father was too much absorbed with his own exultation to mark the
look of scorn which, for an instant, Nicholas could not have suppressed
had he been upon the rack. 'There,' he continued, after a short
silence, 'you have your message and can retire--unless you have any
further--ha!--any further orders.'

'I have none,' said Nicholas; 'nor, in the consideration of the station
you once held, have I used that or any other word which, however
harmless in itself, could be supposed to imply authority on my part or
dependence on yours. I have no orders, but I have fears--fears that I
will express, chafe as you may--fears that you may be consigning that
young lady to something worse than supporting you by the labour of her
hands, had she worked herself dead. These are my fears, and these fears
I found upon your own demeanour. Your conscience will tell you, sir,
whether I construe it well or not.'

'For Heaven's sake!' cried Madeline, interposing in alarm between them.
'Remember, sir, he is ill.'

'Ill!' cried the invalid, gasping and catching for breath. 'Ill! Ill! I
am bearded and bullied by a shop-boy, and she beseeches him to pity me
and remember I am ill!'

He fell into a paroxysm of his disorder, so violent that for a few
moments Nicholas was alarmed for his life; but finding that he began to