The String of Pearls (1850), p. 354

"Very well. Give it to me, then."
"Why, really now, my dear Mrs. Lovett, you quite forget that all our joint savings are in the hands of Mr. Brown."
Todd glared at her as though he would read her very soul. She felt that he more than suspected she knew all, and she adopted at once the bold policy of avowing it.
"I do not forget anything that it is essential should be remembered," she said; "and among other things, I know that, by forging my name, you have withdrawn the whole of the money from the hands of Brown. It is not worth our while to dispute concerning your motives for such an act. Let it suffice that I know it, and that I am here to demand my due."
"Ha! ha!"
"You laugh?"
"I do, indeed. Why, really now—ha! ha!—this is good; and so it is ; this withdrawal of the money from Brown that has made all this riot in your brain? Why, I withdrew it from him simply because I had certain secret information that his affairs were not in the best order; and from a fear, grounded upon that information, that he might be tempted to put his hand into our purse, if he found nothing in his own."
"Well, well; it matters not what were your reasons. Give me my half. It will be then out of your custody, and you will have no anxiety concerning it, while I can have no suspicions."
"In a moment—"
"You will?"
"If I had it here; but I have re-invested the whole, you see, and cannot get it at a moment's notice. 1 have moved it from the hands of Brown to those of Black."

CHAPTER LXXIX.
TODD TAKES A JOURNEY TO THE TEMPLE.

"Black?" said Mrs Lovett.
"Yes, Black."
"Do you think me so—" green, she was going to say, but the accidental conjunction of the colours—brown, black, and green—suddenly struck her as ludicrous, and she altered it to foolish. "Do you think me so foolish as for one moment to credit you?"
"Hark you, Mrs. Lovett," pursued Todd, suddenly assuming quite a different tone. "You have come here full of passion, because you thought I was deceiving you."
"You are."
"Allow me to proceed. It is, I believe, one of the penalties of all associations for—for—why do I hesitate about a word?—guilty purposes that there should be mutual distrust. I tell you again, that if I had not moved the money from Brown, we should have lost it all."
"But why not come to me and get my signature?"
"There—really—was—not—time," said Todd, dropping his words out one by one, with a sttccato expression.
"That is too absurd."
Todd shrugged his shoulders, as though he would have said—"Well, if you will have it so, I cannot help it;" and then he said—
"I was in the City. I heard the rumour of the instability of Brown. I flew into a shop. I wrote the order like a flash of lightning. I went to Brown's like an avalance, and I brought away the money, as if Heaven and earth were coming together."
There was not the ghost of a smile upon Todd's face as he made use of these superlatives. Mrs. Lovett began to be staggered.