第287章

`Good God! I don't stand up to have you at an advantage,' said Nicholas (for Nicholas it was), as he observed a gesture of alarm on the part of Gride. `Listen to me. You are to be married tomorrow morning.'

`N--n--no,' rejoined Gride. `Who said I was? How do you know that?'

`No matter how,' replied Nicholas, `I know it. The young lady who is to give you her hand hates and despises you. Her blood runs cold at the mention of your name--the vulture and the lamb, the rat and the dove, could not be worse matched than you and she. You see I know her.'

Gride looked at him as if he were petrified with astonishment, but did not speak; perhaps lacking the power.

`You and another man, Ralph Nickleby by name, have hatched this plot between you,' pursued Nicholas. `You pay him for his share in bringing about this sale of Madeline Bray. You do. A lie is trembling on your lips, I see.'

He paused; but, Arthur making no reply, resumed again.

`You pay yourself by defrauding her. How or by what means--for I scorn to sully her cause by falsehood or deceit--I do not know; at present Ido not know, but I am not alone or single-handed in this business. If the energy of man can compass the discovery of your fraud and treachery before your death--if wealth, revenge, and just hatred, can hunt and track you through your windings--you will yet be called to a dear account for this.

We are on the scent already--judge you, who know what we do not, when we shall have you down!'

He paused again, and still Arthur Gride glared upon him in silence.

`If you were a man to whom I could appeal with any hope of touching his compassion or humanity,' said Nicholas, `I would urge upon you to remember the helplessness, the innocence, the youth, of this lady; her worth and beauty, her filial excellence, and last, and more than all, as concerning you more nearly, the appeal she has made to your mercy and your manly feeling.

But, I take the only ground that can be taken with men like you, and ask what money will buy you off. Remember the danger to which you are exposed.

You see I know enough to know much more with very little help. Bate some expected gain for the risk you save, and say what is your price.'

Old Arthur Gride moved his lips, but they only formed an ugly smile and were motionless again.

`You think,' said Nicholas, `that the price would not be paid. Miss Bray has wealthy friends who would coin their very hearts to save her in such a strait as this. Name your price, defer these nuptials for but a few days, and see whether those I speak of, shrink from the payment. Do you hear me?'

When Nicholas began, Arthur Gride's impression was, that Ralph Nickleby had betrayed him; but, as he proceeded, he felt convinced that however he had come by the knowledge he possessed, the part he acted was a genuine one, and that with Ralph he had no concern. All he seemed to know, for certain, was, that he, Gride, paid Ralph's debt; but that, to anybody who knew the circumstances of Bray's detention--even to Bray himself, on Ralph's own statement--must be perfectly notorious. As to the fraud on Madeline herself, his visitor knew so little about its nature or extent, that it might be a lucky guess, or a hap-hazard accusation. Whether or no, he had clearly no key to the mystery, and could not hurt him who kept it close within his own breast. The allusion to friends, and the offer of money, Gride held to be mere empty vapouring, for purposes of delay. `And even if money were to be had,' thought Arthur Glide, as he glanced at Nicholas, and trembled with passion at his boldness and audacity, `I'd have that dainty chick for my wife, and cheat you of her, young smooth-face!'

Long habit of weighing and noting well what clients said, and nicely balancing chances in his mind and calculating odds to their faces, without the least appearance of being so engaged, had rendered Gride quick in forming conclusions, and arriving, from puzzling, intricate, and often contradictory premises, at very cunning deductions. Hence it was that, as Nicholas went on, he followed him closely with his own constructions, and, when he ceased to speak, was as well prepared as if he had deliberated for a fortnight.