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 I do 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, that 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 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, and 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 Gride, as he glanced at Nicholas, and trembled with passion at his boldness and audacity,
