“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 so 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.