Chapter: Adept as she was, in all the arts of cunning and dissimulation, the
girl Nancy could not wholly conceal the effect which the knowledge of
the step she had taken, wrought upon her mind.  She remembered that
both the crafty Jew and the brutal Sikes had confided to her schemes,
which had been hidden from all others: in the full confidence that she
was trustworthy and beyond the reach of their suspicion.  Vile as those
schemes were, desperate as were their originators, and bitter as were
her feelings towards Fagin, who had led her, step by step, deeper and
deeper down into an abyss of crime and misery, whence was no escape;
still, there were times when, even towards him, she felt some
relenting, lest her disclosure should bring him within the iron grasp
he had so long eluded, and he should fall at last--richly as he merited
such a fate--by her hand.

But, these were the mere wanderings of a mind unable wholly to detach
itself from old companions and associations, though enabled to fix
itself steadily on one object, and resolved not to be turned aside by
any consideration.  Her fears for Sikes would have been more powerful
inducements to recoil while there was yet time; but she had stipulated
that her secret should be rigidly kept, she had dropped no clue which
could lead to his discovery, she had refused, even for his sake, a
refuge from all the guilt and wretchedness that encompasses her--and
what more could she do! She was resolved.

Though all her mental struggles terminated in this conclusion, they
forced themselves upon her, again and again, and left their traces too.
She grew pale and thin, even within a few days.  At times, she took no
heed of what was passing before her, or no part in conversations where
once, she would have been the loudest.  At other times, she laughed
without merriment, and was noisy without a moment afterwards--she sat
silent and dejected, brooding with her head upon her hands, while the
very effort by which she roused herself, told, more forcibly than even
these indications, that she was ill at ease, and that her thoughts were
occupied with matters very different and distant from those in the
course of discussion by her companions.

It was Sunday night, and the bell of the nearest church struck the
hour.  Sikes and the Jew were talking, but they paused to listen.  The
girl looked up from the low seat on which she crouched, and listened
too.  Eleven.

'An hour this side of midnight,' said Sikes, raising the blind to look
out and returning to his seat.  'Dark and heavy it is too. A good night
for business this.'

'Ah!' replied Fagin.  'What a pity, Bill, my dear, that there's none
quite ready to be done.'

'You're right for once,' replied Sikes gruffly.  'It is a pity, for I'm
in the humour too.'

Fagin sighed, and shook his head despondingly.

'We must make up for lost time when we've got things into a good train.
That's all I know,' said Sikes.

'That's the way to talk, my dear,' replied Fagin, venturing to pat him
on the shoulder.  'It does me good to hear you.'

'Does you good, does it!' cried Sikes.  'Well, so be it.'

'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed Fagin, as if he were relieved by even this
concession.  'You're like yourself to-night, Bill.  Quite like
yourself.'

'I don't feel like myself when you lay that withered old claw on my
shoulder, so take it away,' said Sikes, casting off the Jew's hand.

'It make you nervous, Bill,--reminds you of being nabbed, does it?'
said Fagin, determined not to be offended.

'Reminds me of being nabbed by the devil,' returned Sikes. 'There never
was another man with such a face as yours, unless it was your father,
and I suppose _he_ is singeing his grizzled red beard by this time,
unless you came straight from the old 'un without any father at all
betwixt you; which I shouldn't wonder at, a bit.'

Fagin offered no reply to this compliment:  but, pulling Sikes by the
sleeve, pointed his finger towards Nancy, who had taken advantage of
the foregoing conversation to put on her bonnet, and was now leaving
the room.

'Hallo!' cried Sikes.  'Nance.  Where's the gal going to at this time
of night?'

'Not far.'

'What answer's that?' retorted Sikes.  'Do you hear me?'

'I don't know where,' replied the girl.

'Then I do,' said Sikes, more in the spirit of obstinacy than because
he had any real objection to the girl going where she listed.
'Nowhere.  Sit down.'

'I'm not well.  I told you that before,' rejoined the girl.  'I want a
breath of air.'

'Put your head out of the winder,' replied Sikes.

'There's not enough there,' said the girl.  'I want it in the street.'

'Then you won't have it,' replied Sikes.  With which assurance he rose,
locked the door, took the key out, and pulling her bonnet from her
head, flung it up to the top of an old press.  'There,' said the
robber.  'Now stop quietly where you are, will you?'

'It's not such a matter as a bonnet would keep me,' said the girl
turning very pale.  'What do you mean, Bill?  Do you know what you're
doing?'

'Know what I'm--Oh!' cried Sikes, turning to Fagin, 'she's out of her
senses, you know, or she daren't talk to me in that way.'

'You'll drive me on the something desperate,' muttered the girl placing
both hands upon her breast, as though to keep down by force some
violent outbreak.  'Let me go, will you,--this minute--this instant.'

'No!' said Sikes.

'Tell him to let me go, Fagin.  He had better.  It'll be better for
him.  Do you hear me?' cried Nancy stamping her foot upon the ground.

'Hear you!' repeated Sikes turning round in his chair to confront her.
'Aye!  And if I hear you for half a minute longer, the dog shall have
such a grip on your throat as'll tear some of that screaming voice out.
Wot has come over you, you jade!  Wot is it?'

'Let me go,' said the girl with great earnestness; then sitting herself
down on the floor, before the door, she said, 'Bill, let me go; you
don't know what you are doing. You don't, indeed.  For only one
hour--do--do!'

'Cut my limbs off one by one!' cried Sikes, seizing her roughly by the
arm, 'If I don't think the gal's stark raving mad.  Get up.'

'Not till you let me go--not till you let me go--Never--never!'
screamed the girl.  Sikes looked on, for a minute, watching his
opportunity, and suddenly pinioning her hands dragged her, struggling
and wrestling with him by the way, into a small room adjoining, where
he sat himself on a bench, and thrusting her into a chair, held her
down by force.  She struggled and implored by turns until twelve
o'clock had struck, and then, wearied and exhausted, ceased to contest
the point any further.  With a caution, backed by many oaths, to make
no more efforts to go out that night, Sikes left her to recover at
leisure and rejoined Fagin.

'Whew!' said the housebreaker wiping the perspiration from his face.
'Wot a precious strange gal that is!'

'You may say that, Bill,' replied Fagin thoughtfully.  'You may say
that.'

'Wot did she take it into her head to go out to-night for, do you
think?' asked Sikes.  'Come; you should know her better than me. Wot
does it mean?'

'Obstinacy; woman's obstinacy, I suppose, my dear.'

'Well, I suppose it is,' growled Sikes.  'I thought I had tamed her,
but she's as bad as ever.'

'Worse,' said Fagin thoughtfully.  'I never knew her like this, for
such a little cause.'

'Nor I,' said Sikes.  'I think she's got a touch of that fever in her
blood yet, and it won't come out--eh?'

'Like enough.'

'I'll let her a little blood, without troubling the doctor, if she's
took that way again,' said Sikes.

Fagin nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment.

'She was hanging about me all day, and night too, when I was stretched
on my back; and you, like a blackhearted wolf as you are, kept yourself
aloof,' said Sikes.  'We was poor too, all the time, and I think, one
way or other, it's worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here
so long has made her restless--eh?'

'That's it, my dear,' replied the Jew in a whisper.  'Hush!'

As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her
former seat.  Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and
fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing.

'Why, now she's on the other tack!' exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of
excessive surprise on his companion.

Fagin nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few
minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour. Whispering
Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, Fagin took up his hat
and bade him good-night.  He paused when he reached the room-door, and
looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs.

'Light him down,' said Sikes, who was filling his pipe. 'It's a pity he
should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers.  Show
him a light.'

Nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle.  When they
reached the passage, he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close
to the girl, said, in a whisper.

'What is it, Nancy, dear?'

'What do you mean?' replied the girl, in the same tone.

'The reason of all this,' replied Fagin.  'If _he_'--he pointed with
his skinny fore-finger up the stairs--'is so hard with you (he's a
brute, Nance, a brute-beast), why don't you--'

'Well?' said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching
her ear, and his eyes looking into hers.

'No matter just now.  We'll talk of this again.  You have a friend in
me, Nance; a staunch friend.  I have the means at hand, quiet and
close.  If you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog--like a
dog!  worse than his dog, for he humours him sometimes--come to me.  I
say, come to me.  He is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of
old, Nance.'

'I know you well,' replied the girl, without manifesting the least
emotion.  'Good-night.'

She shrank back, as Fagin offered to lay his hand on hers, but said
good-night again, in a steady voice, and, answering his parting look
with a nod of intelligence, closed the door between them.

Fagin walked towards his home, intent upon the thoughts that were
working within his brain.  He had conceived the idea--not from what had
just passed though that had tended to confirm him, but slowly and by
degrees--that Nancy, wearied of the housebreaker's brutality, had
conceived an attachment for some new friend.  Her altered manner, her
repeated absences from home alone, her comparative indifference to the
interests of the gang for which she had once been so zealous, and,
added to these, her desperate impatience to leave home that night at a
particular hour, all favoured the supposition, and rendered it, to him
at least, almost matter of certainty.  The object of this new liking
was not among his myrmidons.  He would be a valuable acquisition with
such an assistant as Nancy, and must (thus Fagin argued) be secured
without delay.

There was another, and a darker object, to be gained.  Sikes knew too
much, and his ruffian taunts had not galled Fagin the less, because the
wounds were hidden.  The girl must know, well, that if she shook him
off, she could never be safe from his fury, and that it would be surely
wreaked--to the maiming of limbs, or perhaps the loss of life--on the
object of her more recent fancy.

'With a little persuasion,' thought Fagin, 'what more likely than that
she would consent to poison him?  Women have done such things, and
worse, to secure the same object before now.  There would be the
dangerous villain:  the man I hate:  gone; another secured in his
place; and my influence over the girl, with a knowledge of this crime
to back it, unlimited.'

These things passed through the mind of Fagin, during the short time he
sat alone, in the housebreaker's room; and with them uppermost in his
thoughts, he had taken the opportunity afterwards afforded him, of
sounding the girl in the broken hints he threw out at parting.  There
was no expression of surprise, no assumption of an inability to
understand his meaning.  The girl clearly comprehended it.  Her glance
at parting showed _that_.

But perhaps she would recoil from a plot to take the life of Sikes, and
that was one of the chief ends to be attained. 'How,' thought Fagin, as
he crept homeward, 'can I increase my influence with her?  What new
power can I acquire?'

Such brains are fertile in expedients.  If, without extracting a
confession from herself, he laid a watch, discovered the object of her
altered regard, and threatened to reveal the whole history to Sikes (of
whom she stood in no common fear) unless she entered into his designs,
could he not secure her compliance?

'I can,' said Fagin, almost aloud.  'She durst not refuse me then.  Not
for her life, not for her life!  I have it all.  The means are ready,
and shall be set to work.  I shall have you yet!'

He cast back a dark look, and a threatening motion of the hand, towards
the spot where he had left the bolder villain; and went on his way:
busying his bony hands in the folds of his tattered garment, which he
wrenched tightly in his grasp, as though there were a hated enemy
crushed with every motion of his fingers.


The old man was up, betimes, next morning, and waited impatiently for
the appearance of his new associate, who after a delay that seemed
interminable, at length presented himself, and commenced a voracious
assault on the breakfast.

'Bolter,' said Fagin, drawing up a chair and seating himself opposite
Morris Bolter.

'Well, here I am,' returned Noah.  'What's the matter?  Don't yer ask
me to do anything till I have done eating. That's a great fault in this
place.  Yer never get time enough over yer meals.'

'You can talk as you eat, can't you?' said Fagin, cursing his dear
young friend's greediness from the very bottom of his heart.

'Oh yes, I can talk.  I get on better when I talk,' said Noah, cutting
a monstrous slice of bread.  'Where's Charlotte?'

'Out,' said Fagin.  'I sent her out this morning with the other young
woman, because I wanted us to be alone.'

'Oh!' said Noah.  'I wish yer'd ordered her to make some buttered toast
first.  Well.  Talk away.  Yer won't interrupt me.'

There seemed, indeed, no great fear of anything interrupting him, as he
had evidently sat down with a determination to do a great deal of
business.

'You did well yesterday, my dear,' said Fagin.  'Beautiful!  Six
shillings and ninepence halfpenny on the very first day!  The kinchin
lay will be a fortune to you.'

'Don't you forget to add three pint-pots and a milk-can,' said Mr.
Bolter.

'No, no, my dear.  The pint-pots were great strokes of genius: but the
milk-can was a perfect masterpiece.'

'Pretty well, I think, for a beginner,' remarked Mr. Bolter
complacently.  'The pots I took off airy railings, and the milk-can was
standing by itself outside a public-house.  I thought it might get
rusty with the rain, or catch cold, yer know.  Eh?  Ha! ha! ha!'

Fagin affected to laugh very heartily; and Mr. Bolter having had his
laugh out, took a series of large bites, which finished his first hunk
of bread and butter, and assisted himself to a second.

'I want you, Bolter,' said Fagin, leaning over the table, 'to do a
piece of work for me, my dear, that needs great care and caution.'

'I say,' rejoined Bolter, 'don't yer go shoving me into danger, or
sending me any more o' yer police-offices. That don't suit me, that
don't; and so I tell yer.'

'That's not the smallest danger in it--not the very smallest,' said the
Jew; 'it's only to dodge a woman.'

'An old woman?' demanded Mr. Bolter.

'A young one,' replied Fagin.

'I can do that pretty well, I know,' said Bolter.  'I was a regular
cunning sneak when I was at school.  What am I to dodge her for?  Not
to--'

'Not to do anything, but to tell me where she goes, who she sees, and,
if possible, what she says; to remember the street, if it is a street,
or the house, if it is a house; and to bring me back all the
information you can.'

'What'll yer give me?' asked Noah, setting down his cup, and looking
his employer, eagerly, in the face.

'If you do it well, a pound, my dear.  One pound,' said Fagin, wishing
to interest him in the scent as much as possible.  'And that's what I
never gave yet, for any job of work where there wasn't valuable
consideration to be gained.'

'Who is she?' inquired Noah.

'One of us.'

'Oh Lor!' cried Noah, curling up his nose.  'Yer doubtful of her, are
yer?'

'She has found out some new friends, my dear, and I must know who they
are,' replied Fagin.

'I see,' said Noah.  'Just to have the pleasure of knowing them, if
they're respectable people, eh?  Ha! ha! ha! I'm your man.'

'I knew you would be,' cried Fagin, elated by the success of his
proposal.

'Of course, of course,' replied Noah.  'Where is she? Where am I to
wait for her?  Where am I to go?'

'All that, my dear, you shall hear from me.  I'll point her out at the
proper time,' said Fagin.  'You keep ready, and leave the rest to me.'

That night, and the next, and the next again, the spy sat booted and
equipped in his carter's dress:  ready to turn out at a word from
Fagin.  Six nights passed--six long weary nights--and on each, Fagin
came home with a disappointed face, and briefly intimated that it was
not yet time.  On the seventh, he returned earlier, and with an
exultation he could not conceal.  It was Sunday.

'She goes abroad to-night,' said Fagin, 'and on the right errand, I'm
sure; for she has been alone all day, and the man she is afraid of will
not be back much before daybreak.  Come with me. Quick!'

Noah started up without saying a word; for the Jew was in a state of
such intense excitement that it infected him.  They left the house
stealthily, and hurrying through a labyrinth of streets, arrived at
length before a public-house, which Noah recognised as the same in
which he had slept, on the night of his arrival in London.

It was past eleven o'clock, and the door was closed.  It opened softly
on its hinges as Fagin gave a low whistle. They entered, without noise;
and the door was closed behind them.

Scarcely venturing to whisper, but substituting dumb show for words,
Fagin, and the young Jew who had admitted them, pointed out the pane of
glass to Noah, and signed to him to climb up and observe the person in
the adjoining room.

'Is that the woman?' he asked, scarcely above his breath.

Fagin nodded yes.

'I can't see her face well,' whispered Noah.  'She is looking down, and
the candle is behind her.

'Stay there,' whispered Fagin.  He signed to Barney, who withdrew.  In
an instant, the lad entered the room adjoining, and, under pretence of
snuffing the candle, moved it in the required position, and, speaking
to the girl, caused her to raise her face.

'I see her now,' cried the spy.

'Plainly?'

'I should know her among a thousand.'

He hastily descended, as the room-door opened, and the girl came out.
Fagin drew him behind a small partition which was curtained off, and
they held their breaths as she passed within a few feet of their place
of concealment, and emerged by the door at which they had entered.

'Hist!' cried the lad who held the door.  'Dow.'

Noah exchanged a look with Fagin, and darted out.

'To the left,' whispered the lad; 'take the left had, and keep od the
other side.'

He did so; and, by the light of the lamps, saw the girl's retreating
figure, already at some distance before him.  He advanced as near as he
considered prudent, and kept on the opposite side of the street, the
better to observe her motions. She looked nervously round, twice or
thrice, and once stopped to let two men who were following close behind
her, pass on.  She seemed to gather courage as she advanced, and to
walk with a steadier and firmer step.  The spy preserved the same
relative distance between them, and followed:  with his eye upon her.



The church clocks chimed three quarters past eleven, as two figures
emerged on London Bridge.  One, which advanced with a swift and rapid
step, was that of a woman who looked eagerly about her as though in
quest of some expected object; the other figure was that of a man, who
slunk along in the deepest shadow he could find, and, at some distance,
accommodated his pace to hers:  stopping when she stopped:  and as she
moved again, creeping stealthily on:  but never allowing himself, in
the ardour of his pursuit, to gain upon her footsteps.  Thus, they
crossed the bridge, from the Middlesex to the Surrey shore, when the
woman, apparently disappointed in her anxious scrutiny of the
foot-passengers, turned back.  The movement was sudden; but he who
watched her, was not thrown off his guard by it; for, shrinking into
one of the recesses which surmount the piers of the bridge, and leaning
over the parapet the better to conceal his figure, he suffered her to
pass on the opposite pavement. When she was about the same distance in
advance as she had been before, he slipped quietly down, and followed
her again. At nearly the centre of the bridge, she stopped.  The man
stopped too.

It was a very dark night.  The day had been unfavourable, and at that
hour and place there were few people stirring. Such as there were,
hurried quickly past:  very possibly without seeing, but certainly
without noticing, either the woman, or the man who kept her in view.
Their appearance was not calculated to attract the importunate regards
of such of London's destitute population, as chanced to take their way
over the bridge that night in search of some cold arch or doorless
hovel wherein to lay their heads; they stood there in silence:  neither
speaking nor spoken to, by any one who passed.

A mist hung over the river, deepening the red glare of the fires that
burnt upon the small craft moored off the different wharfs, and
rendering darker and more indistinct the murky buildings on the banks.
The old smoke-stained storehouses on either side, rose heavy and dull
from the dense mass of roofs and gables, and frowned sternly upon water
too black to reflect even their lumbering shapes. The tower of old
Saint Saviour's Church, and the spire of Saint Magnus, so long the
giant-warders of the ancient bridge, were visible in the gloom; but the
forest of shipping below bridge, and the thickly scattered spires of
churches above, were nearly all hidden from sight.

The girl had taken a few restless turns to and fro--closely watched
meanwhile by her hidden observer--when the heavy bell of St. Paul's
tolled for the death of another day.  Midnight had come upon the
crowded city.  The palace, the night-cellar, the jail, the madhouse:
the chambers of birth and death, of health and sickness, the rigid face
of the corpse and the calm sleep of the child:  midnight was upon them
all.

The hour had not struck two minutes, when a young lady, accompanied by
a grey-haired gentleman, alighted from a hackney-carriage within a
short distance of the bridge, and, having dismissed the vehicle, walked
straight towards it.  They had scarcely set foot upon its pavement,
when the girl started, and immediately made towards them.

They walked onward, looking about them with the air of persons who
entertained some very slight expectation which had little chance of
being realised, when they were suddenly joined by this new associate.
They halted with an exclamation of surprise, but suppressed it
immediately; for a man in the garments of a countryman came close
up--brushed against them, indeed--at that precise moment.

'Not here,' said Nancy hurriedly, 'I am afraid to speak to you here.
Come away--out of the public road--down the steps yonder!'

As she uttered these words, and indicated, with her hand, the direction
in which she wished them to proceed, the countryman looked round, and
roughly asking what they took up the whole pavement for, passed on.

The steps to which the girl had pointed, were those which, on the
Surrey bank, and on the same side of the bridge as Saint Saviour's
Church, form a landing-stairs from the river.  To this spot, the man
bearing the appearance of a countryman, hastened unobserved; and after
a moment's survey of the place, he began to descend.

These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three flights.
Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the
left terminates in an ornamental pilaster facing towards the Thames.
At this point the lower steps widen:  so that a person turning that
angle of the wall, is necessarily unseen by any others on the stairs
who chance to be above him, if only a step. The countryman looked
hastily round, when he reached this point; and as there seemed no
better place of concealment, and, the tide being out, there was plenty
of room, he slipped aside, with his back to the pilaster, and there
waited:  pretty certain that they would come no lower, and that even if
he could not hear what was said, he could follow them again, with
safety.

So tardily stole the time in this lonely place, and so eager was the
spy to penetrate the motives of an interview so different from what he
had been led to expect, that he more than once gave the matter up for
lost, and persuaded himself, either that they had stopped far above, or
had resorted to some entirely different spot to hold their mysterious
conversation.  He was on the point of emerging from his hiding-place,
and regaining the road above, when he heard the sound of footsteps, and
directly afterwards of voices almost close at his ear.

He drew himself straight upright against the wall, and, scarcely
breathing, listened attentively.

'This is far enough,' said a voice, which was evidently that of the
gentleman.  'I will not suffer the young lady to go any farther.  Many
people would have distrusted you too much to have come even so far, but
you see I am willing to humour you.'

'To humour me!' cried the voice of the girl whom he had followed.
'You're considerate, indeed, sir.  To humour me!  Well, well, it's no
matter.'

'Why, for what,' said the gentleman in a kinder tone, 'for what purpose
can you have brought us to this strange place?  Why not have let me
speak to you, above there, where it is light, and there is something
stirring, instead of bringing us to this dark and dismal hole?'

'I told you before,' replied Nancy, 'that I was afraid to speak to you
there.  I don't know why it is,' said the girl, shuddering, 'but I have
such a fear and dread upon me to-night that I can hardly stand.'

'A fear of what?' asked the gentleman, who seemed to pity her.

'I scarcely know of what,' replied the girl.  'I wish I did. Horrible
thoughts of death, and shrouds with blood upon them, and a fear that
has made me burn as if I was on fire, have been upon me all day.  I was
reading a book to-night, to wile the time away, and the same things
came into the print.'

'Imagination,' said the gentleman, soothing her.

'No imagination,' replied the girl in a hoarse voice. 'I'll swear I saw
"coffin" written in every page of the book in large black
letters,--aye, and they carried one close to me, in the streets
to-night.'

'There is nothing unusual in that,' said the gentleman. 'They have
passed me often.'

'_Real ones_,' rejoined the girl.  'This was not.'

There was something so uncommon in her manner, that the flesh of the
concealed listener crept as he heard the girl utter these words, and
the blood chilled within him.  He had never experienced a greater
relief than in hearing the sweet voice of the young lady as she begged
her to be calm, and not allow herself to become the prey of such
fearful fancies.

'Speak to her kindly,' said the young lady to her companion. 'Poor
creature!  She seems to need it.'

'Your haughty religious people would have held their heads up to see me
as I am to-night, and preached of flames and vengeance,' cried the
girl.  'Oh, dear lady, why ar'n't those who claim to be God's own folks
as gentle and as kind to us poor wretches as you, who, having youth,
and beauty, and all that they have lost, might be a little proud
instead of so much humbler?'

'Ah!' said the gentleman.  'A Turk turns his face, after washing it
well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these good people, after
giving their faces such a rub against the World as to take the smiles
off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of Heaven.
Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!'

These words appeared to be addressed to the young lady, and were
perhaps uttered with the view of affording Nancy time to recover
herself.  The gentleman, shortly afterwards, addressed himself to her.

'You were not here last Sunday night,' he said.

'I couldn't come,' replied Nancy; 'I was kept by force.'

'By whom?'

'Him that I told the young lady of before.'

'You were not suspected of holding any communication with anybody on
the subject which has brought us here to-night, I hope?' asked the old
gentleman.

'No,' replied the girl, shaking her head.  'It's not very easy for me
to leave him unless he knows why; I couldn't give him a drink of
laudanum before I came away.'

'Did he awake before you returned?' inquired the gentleman.

'No; and neither he nor any of them suspect me.'

'Good,' said the gentleman.  'Now listen to me.'

'I am ready,' replied the girl, as he paused for a moment.

'This young lady,' the gentleman began, 'has communicated to me, and to
some other friends who can be safely trusted, what you told her nearly
a fortnight since.  I confess to you that I had doubts, at first,
whether you were to be implicitly relied upon, but now I firmly believe
you are.'

'I am,' said the girl earnestly.

'I repeat that I firmly believe it.  To prove to you that I am disposed
to trust you, I tell you without reserve, that we propose to extort the
secret, whatever it may be, from the fear of this man Monks.  But
if--if--' said the gentleman, 'he cannot be secured, or, if secured,
cannot be acted upon as we wish, you must deliver up the Jew.'

'Fagin,' cried the girl, recoiling.

'That man must be delivered up by you,' said the gentleman.

'I will not do it!  I will never do it!' replied the girl. 'Devil that
he is, and worse than devil as he has been to me, I will never do that.'

'You will not?' said the gentleman, who seemed fully prepared for this
answer.

'Never!' returned the girl.

'Tell me why?'

'For one reason,' rejoined the girl firmly, 'for one reason, that the
lady knows and will stand by me in, I know she will, for I have her
promise:  and for this other reason, besides, that, bad life as he has
led, I have led a bad life too; there are many of us who have kept the
same courses together, and I'll not turn upon them, who might--any of
them--have turned upon me, but didn't, bad as they are.'

'Then,' said the gentleman, quickly, as if this had been the point he
had been aiming to attain; 'put Monks into my hands, and leave him to
me to deal with.'

'What if he turns against the others?'

'I promise you that in that case, if the truth is forced from him,
there the matter will rest; there must be circumstances in Oliver's
little history which it would be painful to drag before the public eye,
and if the truth is once elicited, they shall go scot free.'

'And if it is not?' suggested the girl.

'Then,' pursued the gentleman, 'this Fagin shall not be brought to
justice without your consent.  In such a case I could show you reasons,
I think, which would induce you to yield it.'

'Have I the lady's promise for that?' asked the girl.

'You have,' replied Rose.  'My true and faithful pledge.'

'Monks would never learn how you knew what you do?' said the girl,
after a short pause.

'Never,' replied the gentleman.  'The intelligence should be brought to
bear upon him, that he could never even guess.'

'I have been a liar, and among liars from a little child,' said the
girl after another interval of silence, 'but I will take your words.'

After receiving an assurance from both, that she might safely do so,
she proceeded in a voice so low that it was often difficult for the
listener to discover even the purport of what she said, to describe, by
name and situation, the public-house whence she had been followed that
night.  From the manner in which she occasionally paused, it appeared
as if the gentleman were making some hasty notes of the information she
communicated.  When she had thoroughly explained the localities of the
place, the best position from which to watch it without exciting
observation, and the night and hour on which Monks was most in the
habit of frequenting it, she seemed to consider for a few moments, for
the purpose of recalling his features and appearances more forcibly to
her recollection.

'He is tall,' said the girl, 'and a strongly made man, but not stout;
he has a lurking walk; and as he walks, constantly looks over his
shoulder, first on one side, and then on the other. Don't forget that,
for his eyes are sunk in his head so much deeper than any other man's,
that you might almost tell him by that alone.  His face is dark, like
his hair and eyes; and, although he can't be more than six or eight and
twenty, withered and haggard. His lips are often discoloured and
disfigured with the marks of teeth; for he has desperate fits, and
sometimes even bites his hands and covers them with wounds--why did you
start?' said the girl, stopping suddenly.

The gentleman replied, in a hurried manner, that he was not conscious
of having done so, and begged her to proceed.

'Part of this,' said the girl, 'I have drawn out from other people at
the house I tell you of, for I have only seen him twice, and both times
he was covered up in a large cloak.  I think that's all I can give you
to know him by.  Stay though,' she added.  'Upon his throat:  so high
that you can see a part of it below his neckerchief when he turns his
face:  there is--'

'A broad red mark, like a burn or scald?' cried the gentleman.

'How's this?' said the girl.  'You know him!'

The young lady uttered a cry of surprise, and for a few moments they
were so still that the listener could distinctly hear them breathe.

'I think I do,' said the gentleman, breaking silence.  'I should by
your description.  We shall see.  Many people are singularly like each
other.  It may not be the same.'

As he expressed himself to this effect, with assumed carelessness, he
took a step or two nearer the concealed spy, as the latter could tell
from the distinctness with which he heard him mutter, 'It must be he!'

'Now,' he said, returning:  so it seemed by the sound:  to the spot
where he had stood before, 'you have given us most valuable assistance,
young woman, and I wish you to be the better for it. What can I do to
serve you?'

'Nothing,' replied Nancy.

'You will not persist in saying that,' rejoined the gentleman, with a
voice and emphasis of kindness that might have touched a much harder
and more obdurate heart. 'Think now.  Tell me.'

'Nothing, sir,' rejoined the girl, weeping.  'You can do nothing to
help me.  I am past all hope, indeed.'

'You put yourself beyond its pale,' said the gentleman. 'The past has
been a dreary waste with you, of youthful energies mis-spent, and such
priceless treasures lavished, as the Creator bestows but once and never
grants again, but, for the future, you may hope. I do not say that it
is in our power to offer you peace of heart and mind, for that must
come as you seek it; but a quiet asylum, either in England, or, if you
fear to remain here, in some foreign country, it is not only within the
compass of our ability but our most anxious wish to secure you. Before
the dawn of morning, before this river wakes to the first glimpse of
day-light, you shall be placed as entirely beyond the reach of your
former associates, and leave as utter an absence of all trace behind
you, as if you were to disappear from the earth this moment.  Come!  I
would not have you go back to exchange one word with any old companion,
or take one look at any old haunt, or breathe the very air which is
pestilence and death to you.  Quit them all, while there is time and
opportunity!'

'She will be persuaded now,' cried the young lady.  'She hesitates, I
am sure.'

'I fear not, my dear,' said the gentleman.

'No sir, I do not,' replied the girl, after a short struggle.  'I am
chained to my old life.  I loathe and hate it now, but I cannot leave
it.  I must have gone too far to turn back,--and yet I don't know, for
if you had spoken to me so, some time ago, I should have laughed it
off.  But,' she said, looking hastily round, 'this fear comes over me
again.  I must go home.'

'Home!' repeated the young lady, with great stress upon the word.

'Home, lady,' rejoined the girl.  'To such a home as I have raised for
myself with the work of my whole life.  Let us part. I shall be watched
or seen.  Go!  Go!  If I have done you any service all I ask is, that
you leave me, and let me go my way alone.'

'It is useless,' said the gentleman, with a sigh.  'We compromise her
safety, perhaps, by staying here.  We may have detained her longer than
she expected already.'

'Yes, yes,' urged the girl. 'You have.'

'What,' cried the young lady, 'can be the end of this poor creature's
life!'

'What!' repeated the girl.  'Look before you, lady.  Look at that dark
water.  How many times do you read of such as I who spring into the
tide, and leave no living thing, to care for, or bewail them.  It may
be years hence, or it may be only months, but I shall come to that at
last.'

'Do not speak thus, pray,' returned the young lady, sobbing.

'It will never reach your ears, dear lady, and God forbid such horrors
should!' replied the girl.  'Good-night, good-night!'

The gentleman turned away.

'This purse,' cried the young lady.  'Take it for my sake, that you may
have some resource in an hour of need and trouble.'

'No!' replied the girl.  'I have not done this for money.  Let me have
that to think of.  And yet--give me something that you have worn:  I
should like to have something--no, no, not a ring--your gloves or
handkerchief--anything that I can keep, as having belonged to you,
sweet lady.  There.  Bless you!  God bless you. Good-night, good-night!'

The violent agitation of the girl, and the apprehension of some
discovery which would subject her to ill-usage and violence, seemed to
determine the gentleman to leave her, as she requested.

The sound of retreating footsteps were audible and the voices ceased.

The two figures of the young lady and her companion soon afterwards
appeared upon the bridge.  They stopped at the summit of the stairs.

'Hark!' cried the young lady, listening.  'Did she call!  I thought I
heard her voice.'

'No, my love,' replied Mr. Brownlow, looking sadly back. 'She has not
moved, and will not till we are gone.'

Rose Maylie lingered, but the old gentleman drew her arm through his,
and led her, with gentle force, away.  As they disappeared, the girl
sunk down nearly at her full length upon one of the stone stairs, and
vented the anguish of her heart in bitter tears.

After a time she arose, and with feeble and tottering steps ascended
the street.  The astonished listener remained motionless on his post
for some minutes afterwards, and having ascertained, with many cautious
glances round him, that he was again alone, crept slowly from his
hiding-place, and returned, stealthily and in the shade of the wall, in
the same manner as he had descended.

Peeping out, more than once, when he reached the top, to make sure that
he was unobserved, Noah Claypole darted away at his utmost speed, and
made for the Jew's house as fast as his legs would carry him.

 Because Fagin and Sikes trust Nancy, she is well informed regarding their crimes. In spite of her grudge against Fagin, she would not willingly be the instrument of his undoing. In her conversation with Rose, Nancy said nothing that could injure Sikes. Still, she is worried and distracted by the burden of her thoughts. Fagin and his contemptuous colleague have no new projects working, so on Sunday night they are idle while Nancy frets. After eleven o'clock has struck, Nancy attempts casually to leave the room. With normal perversity, Sikes forbids her to go out. The girl becomes desperate and hysterical. Sikes detains her forcibly in another room until midnight, when she ceases to struggle. The two men discuss Nancy's weird behavior until she re-enters the room. She is apparently subdued, so Sikes directs her to light Fagin down the stairs. Fagin whispers to her that if the "brute-beast" is too hard on her she can turn to him for protection. Fagin alludes to his power to destroy the man whom he hates. Walking home, Fagin ponders the change in Nancy. He has for some time been led to believe that the girl has "wearied of the housebreaker's brutality" and has formed another attachment. Supported by Nancy's talent, such a man would be a valuable addition to Fagin's roster, he tells himself. In Fagin's opinion, Sikes knows too much. In addition, Fagin's hatred of Sikes is worked up by the constant taunts he receives from Sikes. While Fagin was left alone in Sikes's apartment that evening, he reasoned that Nancy must know that if she takes up with another man, neither he nor she would ever be safe from the savage fury of Sikes. So Fagin conceived the plot of having Nancy be the executioner -- perhaps with poison. At their parting, she had betrayed no emotion at Fagin's hint that Sikes might be eliminated. So as he goes homeward, the cunning old rogue plans to have Nancy watched in order to discover where the new boyfriend he supposes her to have is now living. Once he knows, Fagin will have the power to force her to help him murder Sikes, "one of the chief ends to be attained." The next morning, Fagin has a private consultation with Mr. Bolter, which begins when Fagin congratulates the novice upon his first day's accomplishment. Then Fagin assigns Noah the task of spying on one of their associates and bringing back full information about her activity. For six nights Noah stands by in his carter's costume but receives no further instruction. But on Sunday, Fagin tells his agent that his target will surely go out, for her oppressor will be gone all night. Fagin conducts Noah to the Three Cripples. Nancy is in the little room where the old man first saw Sowerberry's late companions. Barney disturbs the girl so that Noah can get a good look at her through the secret pane. When Nancy leaves, the "regular cunning sneak" keeps her in sight. Nancy reaches London Bridge shortly before midnight. She crosses to the opposite side of the river, constantly under Noah's surveillance. She returns to the center of the structure and lingers there. Immediately after midnight, Rose arrives, accompanied by Brownlow. Nancy stops them from speaking just as a figure in rustic dress brushes past with a surly grumble. Nancy proposes to the last arrivals that they move down some steps at the south end of the bridge, where it will be safer to talk. Aware of Nancy's intentions, Noah hastens on ahead and descends the stairs. The others come and stop short of the spy's place of concealment. Brownlow dislikes Nancy's arrangements, but she says in defense that she was afraid to speak in the open. "I have such a fear and dread upon me to-night that I can hardly stand," the poor girl moans, and she goes on to say that she has been afflicted by morbid thoughts and fancies all day. Nancy explains why she was unable to go out last Sunday and confesses that she drugged Sikes in order to see Rose the first time. Brownlow tells Nancy that he wants the opportunity to force Monks to reveal Oliver's secret. If this plan of attack fails, the old gentleman solicits Nancy's aid in delivering up Fagin. The girl staunchly refuses to betray any of those who have trusted and stood by her, causing Brownlow and Miss Maylie to promise that Fagin will not be molested without Nancy's consent if she will cooperate in snaring Monks. The girl agrees on the condition that Monks does not learn who the informer is. Nancy details the location of the Three Cripples and points out how Monks can best be observed. Then she gives a description of the man. When she is about to mention that his neckerchief covers something, Brownlow interrupts with "A broad red mark, like a burn or scald?" The old gentleman tries to pass off his unintentional utterance with indifference, but Noah hears him mumble to himself: "It must be he!" After Nancy finishes giving her information, Brownlow assures her that she can be conveyed to some haven in England or in a foreign land, completely beyond the reach of her old companions. But Nancy cannot be budged from her conviction that it is too late for her to look forward to anything but death. Again she refuses money, but asks instead for some personal trifle of Rose's. After Rose and Mr. Brownlow leave, Nancy reclines on the cold steps and releases her tears of despair. Presently she climbs to the street. When Noah can come forth unseen, he races "away at his utmost speed."

