“Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady,” cried the girl, “that you had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, and—and—something worse than all—as I have been from my cradle. I may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be my deathbed.”
“I pity you!” said Rose, in a broken voice.“It wrings my heart to hear you!”
“Heaven bless you for your goodness!” rejoined the girl. “If you knew what I am sometimes,you would pity me, indeed.But I have stolen away from those who would surely murder me,if they knew I had been here,to tell you what I have overheard.Do you know a man named Monks?”
“No,” said Rose.
“He knows you,” replied the girl;“and knew you were here,for it was by hearing him tell the place that I found you out. ”
“I never heard the name,” said Rose.
“Then he goes by some other amongst us,” rejoined the girl, “which I more than thought before.Some time ago, and soon after Oliver was put into your house on the night of the robbery, I—suspecting this man—listened to a conversation held between him and Fagin in the dark. I found out, from what I heard, that Monks—the man I asked you about, you know—”
“Yes,” said Rose, “I understand.”
“—That Monks,” pursued the girl,“had seen him accidently with two of our boys on the day we first lost him,and had known him directly to be the same child that he was watching for,though I couldn’t make out why.A bargain was struck with Fagin,that if Oliver was got back he should have a certain sum;and he was to have more for making him a thief,which this Monks wanted for some purpose of his own.”
“For what purpose?” asked Rose.
“He caught sight of my shadow on the wall as I listened,in the hope of finding out,” said the girl;“and there are not many people besides me that could have got out of their way in time to escape discovery. But I did; and I saw him no more till last night.”
“And what occurred then?”
“I’ll tell you, lady. Last night he came again.Again they went upstairs, and I,wrapping myself up so that my shadow would not betray me,again listened at the door.The first words I heard Monks say were these:‘So the only proofs of the boy’s identity lie at the bottom of the river,and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin.’ They laughed, and talked of his success in doing this;and Monks, talking on about the boy,and getting very wild,said that though he had got the young devil’s money safely now,he’d rather have had it the other way; for,what a game it would have been to have brought down the boast of the father’s will, by driving him through every jail in town, and then hauling him up for some capital felony which Fagin could easily manage, after having made a good profit of him besides.”
“What is all this!” said Rose.
“The truth, lady, though it comes from my lips,” replied the girl. “Then, he said,with oaths common enough in my ears,but strange to yours,that if he could gratify his hatred by taking the boy’s life without bringing his own neck in danger, he would; but, as he couldn’t, he’d be upon the watch to meet him at every turn in life; and if he took advantage of his birth and history, he might harm him yet. ‘In short, Fagin,’ he says, ‘Jew as you are, you never laid such snares as I’ll contrive for my young brother, Oliver.’”
“His brother!” exclaimed Rose.
“Those were his words,” said Nancy,glancing uneasily round,as she had scarcely ceased to do,since she began to speak,for a vision of Sikes haunted her perpetually.“And more. When he spoke of you and the other lady,and said it seemed contrived by Heaven, or the devil,against him, that Oliver should come into your hands,he laughed, and said there was some comfort in that too,for how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds would you not give,if you had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was. ”
“You do not mean,” said Rose, turning very pale,“to tell me that this was said in earnest?”
“He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did,” replied the girl, shaking her head.“He is an earnest man when his hatred is up.I know many who do worse things;but I’d rather listen to them all a dozen times,than to that Monks once. It is growing late,and I have to reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. I must get back quickly.”
“But what can I do?” said Rose. “To what use can I turn this communication without you?Back!Why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colors?If you repeat this information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an hour’s delay.”
“I wish to go back,” said the girl. “I must go back,because—how can I tell such things to an innocent lady like you?—because among the men I have told you of, there is one:the most desperate among them all; that I can’t leave:no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now. ”
“Your having interfered in this dear boy’s behalf before,” said Rose; “your coming here, at so great a risk,to tell me what you have heard; your manner,which convinces me of the truth of what you say;your evident contrition, and sense of shame;all lead me to believe that you might yet be reclaimed. Oh!” said the earnest girl,folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face,“do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex;the first—the first, I do believe,who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion.Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things.”
“Lady,” cried the girl, sinking on her knees, “dear,sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!”
“It is never too late,” said Rose,“for penitence and atonement.”
“It is,” cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind;“I cannot leave him now!I could not be his death.”
“Why should you be?” asked Rose.