 eye. There'll be a few more tears of surprise there before long, though
of a different kind. Oh! we may wait with confidence for this day week.«
 

                                 Chapter XLVIII

     Being for the Benefit of Mr. Vincent Crummles, and Positively His Last
                           Appearance on This Stage.

It was with a very sad and heavy heart, oppressed by many painful ideas, that
Nicholas retraced his steps eastward and betook himself to the counting-house of
Cheeryble Brothers. Whatever the idle hopes he had suffered himself to
entertain, whatever the pleasant visions which had sprung up in his mind and
grouped themselves round the fair image of Madeline Bray, they were now
dispelled, and not a vestige of their gaiety and brightness remained.
    It would be a poor compliment to Nicholas's better nature, and one which he
was very far from deserving, to insinuate that the solution, and such a
solution, of the mystery which had seemed to surround Madeline Bray, when he was
ignorant even of her name, had damped his ardour or cooled the fervour of his
admiration. If he had regarded her before, with such a passion as young men
attracted by mere beauty and elegance may entertain, he was now conscious of
much deeper and stronger feelings. But, reverence for the truth and purity of
her heart, respect for the helplessness and loneliness of her situation,
sympathy with the trials of one so young and fair, and admiration of her great
and noble spirit, all seemed to raise her far above his reach, and, while they
imparted new depth and dignity to his love, to whisper that it was hopeless.
    »I will keep my word, as I have pledged it to her,« said Nicholas, manfully.
»This is no common trust that I have to discharge, and I will perform the double
duty that is imposed upon me most scrupulously and strictly. My secret feelings
deserve no consideration in such a case as this, and they shall have none.«
    Still, there were the secret feelings in existence just the same, and in
secret Nicholas rather encouraged them than otherwise; reasoning (if he reasoned
at all) that there they could do no harm to anybody but himself, and that if he
kept them to himself from a sense of duty, he had an additional right to
entertain himself with them as a reward for his heroism.
    All these thoughts, coupled with what he had seen that morning and the
anticipation of his next visit, rendered him a very dull and abstracted
companion; so much so, indeed, that Tim Linkinwater suspected he must have made
the mistake
