The String of Pearls (1850), p. 244

as she trembled with excess of emotion. Arabella Wilmot began to be really
alarmed at the consequences of her friend's excited and overwrought feelings.
"Oh, Johanna---Johanna!" she cried, " cheer up. You shall go when you
please, so that you will not give way to this sorrow. You do not know how
much you terrify me. Rise---rise, I implore you. We will go to Fleet Street,
since such is your wish."
After a time, Johanna recovered from the burst of emotion that had taken
such certain possession of her, and she was able to speak more calmly and composedly to her friend than she had yet done during that visit. The tears she
had shed, and the show of feeling that had crept over her, had been a great
relief in reality.
"Can you pardon me for thus tormenting you with my grief ?" said Johanna.
"Do not talk so. Rather wonder how I should pardon you if you tell your
griefs elsewhere. To whom should you bring them but to the bosom of one
who, however she may err in judgment regarding you, cannot err in feeling."
Johanna could only press her friend's hand in her own, and look the gratitude
which she had not the language to give utterance to. It being then settled that
they were to go to Fleet Street, it next became a matter of rather grave debate
between them whether they were to go as they were, or Johanna was to again
equip herself in the disguise of a boy.
"This is merely a visit of observation, Johanna; I will go as I am."
"Very well, dear."
They accordingly set out, and as the distance from the house of Arabella
Wilmot's father was but short to the shop of Sweeney Todd, they soon caught
sight of the projecting pole that was his sign.
"Now be satisfied," said Arabella, "by passing twice; once up Fleet Street,
and once down it."
"I will," said Johanna.
Todd's shop was closed as usual. There was never an open door to that
establishment, so that it was, after all, but a barren satisfaction for poor Johanna
to pass the place where her imagination, strengthened by many circumstantial
pieces of evidence, told her Mark Ingestre had met with his death; still, as she
had said to Arabella before starting, a horrible sort of fascination drew her to
the spot, and she could not resist the fearful attraction that the outside of
Todd's shop had for her. They passed rather rapidly, for Arabella Wilmot did
not wish Johanna to pause, for fear she should be unable to combat her feelings,
and make some sort of exhibition of them in the open street.
"Are you content, Johanna?" she said. "Must we pass again?"
"Oh, yes—yes. Again and again; I can almost fancy that by continued
looking at that place I could see what has been the fate of Mark."
"But this is imagination and folly."
"It may be so, but when the realities of life have become so hideously full of
horrors, one may be excused for seeking some consolation from the fairy cave.
Arabella, let us turn again."
They had got as far as Temple Bar, when they again turned, and this time
Johanna would not pass the shop so abruptly as she had done before, and any
one, to see the marked interest with which she paused at the window, would have
imagined that she must have some lover there whom she could see, notwithstanding the interior of the shop was so completely impervious to all ordinary
gazers:
"There is nothing to see," said Arabella.
"No. But yet---ha!---look---look!"
Johanna pointed to one particular spot of the window, and there was the eye
of Sweeney Todd glaring upon them.
"We are observed," whispered Arabella; "it will be much better to leave
the window at once. Come away---oh, come away, Johanna."
"Not yet---not yet. Oh, if I could look well at that man's face, I think I
ought to be able to judge if he were likely to be the murderer of Mark Ingestre."