Chapter 52

CHAPTER 52

Nicholas despairs of rescuing Madeline Bray, but plucks up his
Spirits again, and determines to attempt it. Domestic Intelligence
of the Kenwigses and Lillyvicks

Finding that Newman was determined to arrest his progress at any
hazard, and apprehensive that some well-intentioned passenger,
attracted by the cry of 'Stop thief,' might lay violent hands upon
his person, and place him in a disagreeable predicament from which
he might have some difficulty in extricating himself, Nicholas soon
slackened his pace, and suffered Newman Noggs to come up with him:
which he did, in so breathless a condition, that it seemed
impossible he could have held out for a minute longer.

'I will go straight to Bray's,' said Nicholas. 'I will see this
man. If there is a feeling of humanity lingering in his breast, a
spark of consideration for his own child, motherless and friendless
as she is, I will awaken it.'

'You will not,' replied Newman. 'You will not, indeed.'

'Then,' said Nicholas, pressing onward, 'I will act upon my first
impulse, and go straight to Ralph Nickleby.'

'By the time you reach his house he will be in bed,' said Newman.

'I'll drag him from it,' cried Nicholas.

'Tut, tut,' said Noggs. 'Be yourself.'

'You are the best of friends to me, Newman,' rejoined Nicholas after
a pause, and taking his hand as he spoke. 'I have made head against
many trials; but the misery of another, and such misery, is involved
in this one, that I declare to you I am rendered desperate, and know
not how to act.'

In truth, it did seem a hopeless case. It was impossible to make
any use of such intelligence as Newman Noggs had gleaned, when he
lay concealed in the closet. The mere circumstance of the compact
between Ralph Nickleby and Gride would not invalidate the marriage,
or render Bray averse to it, who, if he did not actually know of the
existence of some such understanding, doubtless suspected it. What
had been hinted with reference to some fraud on Madeline, had been
put, with sufficient obscurity by Arthur Gride, but coming from
Newman Noggs, and obscured still further by the smoke of his
pocket-pistol, it became wholly unintelligible, and involved in utter
darkness.

'There seems no ray of hope,' said Nicholas.

'The greater necessity for coolness, for reason, for consideration,
for thought,' said Newman, pausing at every alternate word, to look
anxiously in his friend's face. 'Where are the brothers?'

'Both absent on urgent business, as they will be for a week to
come.'

'Is there no way of communicating with them? No way of getting one
of them here by tomorrow night?'

'Impossible!' said Nicholas, 'the sea is between