d that,
although the circumstance had attracted the attention of the informant,
he had not spoken to them at the time, nor made any inquiry afterwards.

This possessed him with the idea that, perhaps, Peg Sliderskew had been
apprehended for the robbery, and that Mr Squeers, being with her at the
time, had been apprehended also, on suspicion of being a confederate. If
this were so, the fact must be known to Gride; and to Gride's house he
directed his steps; now thoroughly alarmed, and fearful that there were
indeed plots afoot, tending to his discomfiture and ruin.

Arrived at the usurer's house, he found the windows close shut, the
dingy blinds drawn down; all was silent, melancholy, and deserted. But
this was its usual aspect. He knocked--gently at first--then loud and
vigorously. Nobody came. He wrote a few words in pencil on a card, and
having thrust it under the door was going away, when a noise above, as
though a window-sash were stealthily raised, caught his ear, and looking
up he could just discern the face of Gride himself, cautiously peering
over the house parapet from the window of the garret. Seeing who was
below, he drew it in again; not so quickly, however, but that Ralph let
him know he was observed, and called to him to come down.

The call being repeated, Gride looked out again, so cautiously that no
part of the old man's body was visible. The sharp features and white
hair appearing alone, above the parapet, looked like a severed head
garnishing the wall.

'Hush!' he cried. 'Go away, go away!'

'Come down,' said Ralph, beckoning him.

'Go a--way!' squeaked Gride, shaking his head in a sort of ecstasy of
impatience. 'Don't speak to me, don't knock, don't call attention to the
house, but go away.'

'I'll knock, I swear, till I have your neighbours up in arms,' said
Ralph, 'if you don't tell me what you mean by lurking there, you whining
cur.'

'I can't hear what you say--don't talk to me--it isn't safe--go away--go
away!' returned Gride.

'Come down, I say. Will you come down?' said Ralph fiercely.

'No--o--o--oo,' snarled Gride. He drew in his head; and Ralph, left
standing in the street, could hear the sash closed, as gently and
carefully as it had been opened.

'How is this,' said he, 'that they all fall from me, and shun me like
the plague, these men who have licked the dust from my feet? IS my
day past, and is this indeed the coming on of night? I'll know what it
means! I will, at any co