The String of Pearls (1850), p. 356

the chain of revenge which Todd cherished against her in his cruel and most secret heart. While he was philosophising about guilty associations producing a feeling of mutual distrust, he should have likewise added that they soon produce mutual hatred. For a few moments they looked at each other—that guilty pair—with expressions that sought to read each other's souls; but they were both tolerable adepts in the art of dissimulation. The silence was the most awkward for Todd, so he broke it first by saying—
"You are satisfied, let me hope?"
"I will be."
"You shall be."
"Yes, when I have my money. Henceforward, Todd, we will have much shorter reckonings, so shall we keep much longer friends. If you keep, in some secret place, your half of the proceeds of our—our—"
"Business," said Todd.
Mrs. Lovett made a sort of gulph of the word, but she adopted it.
"If you, I say, keep your half of the proceeds of our business, and I keep mine, I don t see how it is possible for us to quarrel."
"Quite impossible."
He began to strop a razor diligently, and to try its edge across his thumb nail. Mrs. Lovett's passion—that overwhelming passion which had induced her to enter Todd's shop, and defy him to a species of single combat of wits had in a great measure subsided, giving place to a calmer and more reflective feeling. One of the results of that feeling was a self-question to the effect of,
"What will be the result of an open quarrel with Todd?" Mrs. Lovett shook a little at the answer she felt forced to give herself to this question. That answer was continued in two words—mutual destruction! Yes, that would be the consequence.
"Todd," she said in a softened tone, "if I had forged your name, and gone to the city and possessed myself of all the money, what would you have thought? Tell me that."
"Just what you thought—that it was the most scandalous breach of faith that could possibly be; but an explanation ought to put that right."
"It has"
"Then you are satisfied?"
"I am. At what time shall we go together, to-morrow morning, to Mr. Black's in Abchurch Lane?"
"Name your own time," said Todd with the most assumed air in the world. "Black lives at Ballam Hill, and don't get to business until ten; but any time
after that will do."
"I will come here at ten, then."
"So be it. Ah, Mrs. Lovett, how charming it is to be able to explain away these little difficulties of sentiment, Never trust to appearances. How very deceitful they are apt to be."
There was an air of candour about Todd, that might have deceived the devil himself. Notwithstanding all his hideous ugliness—notwithstanding his voice
was of the lowest order, and notwithstanding that frightful laugh, and that obliquity of vision that seemed peculiar to himself in its terrible malignancy, there was a plausibility about his manner, when he pleased, that was truly astonishing. Even Mrs. Lovett, with all her knowledge of the man, felt that it was a hard struggle to disbelieve his representations. What must it have been to those who knew him not?
"No," said Mrs. Lovett, "it don't do to trust to appearances."
She still held the iron in her hand.
"Nor," added Todd, giving the razor he had been putting an edge to, a flourish, "nor will it do to listen always to the dictates of compassion; for if we did, what miseries might we inflict upon ourselves. Now, here is a cure in point."
"Where?"