The meeting of Nancy and Rose — a specimen of pure goodness confronting a tattered emissary from the camp of evil — is one of the big dramatic scenes of the book. Dickens successfully keeps himself out of the narrative, although some of Nancy's high-flown discourse sounds more like Dickens talking than one of Fagin's pupils. Nancy at first assumes a defiant attitude, but that is thawed by the warmth of Miss Maylie's benevolence, reminding us once more of the power of Miss Maylie's goodheartedness.
The groundwork leading up to this scene has been carefully prepared by means of ingenious foreshadowing. Nancy's daring action explains the many oddities of her behavior during the preceding thirty hours. We know now that she concealed her bonnet and shawl while Monks was in the room because it was her shadow on the wall that interrupted his earlier conference with Fagin. We further realize that when the door seemingly closed of its own accord in Chapter 26, Nancy was slipping into the darkened house. Her extreme distraction after overhearing the second exchange between the two plotters was the consequence of her shocking discovery that Monks's grim exertions are directed toward the destruction of his own little brother.
The unraveling progresses, with a considerable amount of surface detail laid bare. Even so, only details that Dickens has let the reader in on are set out, leaving the underlying causes as murky as ever. Suspense is not diminished, but rather increased, owing to the lack of reasons that could rationally account for the baffling relationships among the characters. Moreover, Mr. Brownlow's secrecy about his activities has stirred up a new current of mystery.
