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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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1035 heeding the inquiry. ‘There’s only one way in which money can be made of it, and that is by taking it to her. Somebody will read it for her, and tell her what to do. She and her accomplice will get money for it and be let off besides; they’ll make a merit of it--say they found it--knew it--and be evidence against me. The only person it will fall upon is me, me, me!’ ‘Patience!’ said Ralph, clutching him still tighter and eyeing him with a sidelong look, so fixed and eager as sufficiently to denote that he had some hidden purpose in what he was about to say. ‘Hear reason. She can’t have been gone long. I’ll call the police. Do you but give information of what she has stolen, and they’ll lay hands upon her, trust me. Here! Help!’ ‘No, no, no!’ screamed the old man, putting his hand on Ralph’s mouth. ‘I can’t, I daren’t.’ ‘Help! help!’ cried Ralph. ‘No, no, no!’ shrieked the other, stamping on the ground with the energy of a madman. ‘I tell you no. I daren’t, I daren’t!’ ‘Daren’t make this robbery public?’ said Ralph. ‘No!’ rejoined Gride, wringing his hands. ‘Hush! Hush! Not a word of this; not a word must be said. I am undone. Whichever way I turn, I am undone. I am betrayed. I shall be given up. I shall die in Newgate!’ With frantic exclamations such as these, and with many others in which fear, grief, and rage, were strangely blended, the panic-stricken wretch gradually subdued his first loud outcry, until it had softened down into a low despairing moan, chequered now and then by a howl, as, going over such papers as were left in the chest, he discovered some new loss. With very little excuse for departing so abruptly, Ralph left him, and, greatly disappointing the loiterers outside the house by telling |
