The String of Pearls (1850), p. 260

the window. A dull reddish glare of light came through it from the furnaces,
which night nor day were extinguished.
"Hist! hist!" said Mrs, Lovett.
"Who speaks?" said a dull hollow voice, which sounded as if coming from
the tomb. "Who speaks to me?"
Mrs. Lovett shut the small wicket in a moment.
"He has not done it, yet," she said. "He has not done it yet. No—no—no. But blood will flow—yes. It must be so. One—two—three—four—five—six—seven. The seventh, and not the last. Horrible! horrible!—most horrible! If, now, I could forget—"
She began rapidly to ascend the stairs, so that Sir Richard Blunt had to take
two at a step, and once three, in order to be up before her, and even then she
reached the parlour so close upon him, that it was a wonder she did not touch
him; but he succeeded in evading her by a hair's breadth, and then she stood
profoundly still for a few moments with her hands clasped. This quiescent
state, however, did not last long, for suddenly, with eagerness, she leaned forward, and spoke again.
"No suspicion!" she said; "all is well!—Dear me, heap up thousands more.
Oh, Todd, have we not enough?—There, clean up that blood!—Here is a cloth!—Stop it up—don't you see where it is running to, like a live thing?—He is not dead yet.—How clumsy.—Another blow with the hammer!—There—there—on the forehead!—What a crash!—Did the bone go that time?—Why the eyes have started out!—Horror! horror!—Oh, God, no—no—no—I cannot come here again.—Oh, God!—Oh, God!"
She sunk down upon the floor in a huddled up mass, and Sir Richard Blunt, who could not forbear shuddering at the last words that had come from her lips now he thought that her trance was over, rapidly approaching her, said—
"Wretched woman, your career is over."
She suddenly rose, and with the same stately movement as before, she made
her way from the parlour by the door leading to the staircase. During all the
strange scenes she had gone through, she had not abandoned the light, and although the air in the narrow passage of the staircase had extinguished it, she still continued to carry it with the same care as though it lit her on her way. Seeing that she still walked in that strange and hideous sleep, the magistrate let her pass him, nor did he make any attempt to follow her.
"Be it so," he said. "Let her awaken once again in the fancied security of her guilt. The doom of the murderess is hanging over her, and she shall not escape. But there is time yet."
He watched her until, by the turn of the stairs, she disappeared from his sight,
and then he sat down to think. And there, for a brief space, we leave Sir Richard,
while we take a peep at Tobias.

CHAPTER LVI.
TOBIAS UNBOSOMS HIMSELF.

Mrs. Ragg, when she met Sweeney Todd, after he had so comfortably put
out of this world of care, John Mundell, the usurer, was really upon a mission
to Minna Gray, to tell her that Tobias was, to use her own expressive phraseology#8212;"Never so much better." Together with this news, Mrs. Ragg, at the colonel's suggestion, sought the company of Minna to tea upon that afternoon; and the consent of all parties whom it might concern being duly obtained to that arrangement, we will suppose Minna upon her way to Colonel Jeffery's. Timidly, and with a bashful boldness, if we may use the expression, did the fair young girl ring the area bell at the colonel's. But he and his friend. Captain Rathbone, were both in the parlour, and saw her advance, so that she was at once welcomed