The String of Pearls (1850), p. 357

THE STRING OE PEARLS. 357

"I allude to this little affair between us. If you had flown to Bow-street, and there, to spite me, made a full disclosure of certain little facts, why, the result would have been that we might both have slept in Newgate to-night."
"Yes, yes."
"And then there would have been no recal. You could not have freed us by telling the police that you had made a mistake. Then the gallows would have risen up in our dreams."
"Horrible!"
"And it being easily discovered that it was no love of public justice or feeling of remorse, that induced you to the betrayal, they would have shown you no mercy, but you would have swung from the halter amid the shouts and execrations of—"
"No, no!"
"I say yes."
"No more of this—no more of this. Can you bear to paint such a picture—does it not seem to you as though you stood upon that scaffold, and heard those
shouts? Oh, horror, horror!"
"You don't like the picture?"
"No, no!"
"Ha! ha! Well, Mrs. Lovett, you and I had far better be friends than foes; and above all, you ought by this time to feel that you could trust me. The very fact that to all the world else I am false, ought to prove to you that to you I am true. No human being can exist purely isolated, and I am not an exception."
"Say no more—say no more. We will meet to-morrow."
"To- morrow be it, then."
"At ten."
"At ten be it, and then we will go to Black. Come now, since all this is settled, take a glass of wine to our—"
"No, no. Not that. I—I am not very well. A throbbing head-ache—a—a. That is, no!"
"As you please—as you please. By-the-by, did Black give me a receipt, or did he say it was not usual? Stay a moment, I will look in my secretaire. Sit down a moment in the shaving chair; I will be with you again directly."
"We will settle that to-morrow," said Mrs. Lovett ; "I feel convinced that Black did not give you a receipt Good-day."
She left the shop, unceremoniously carrying the iron with her. Todd breathed more freely when Mrs. Lovett was gone. He gave one of his horrible laughs as
he watched her through the opening in his window.
"Ha! ha! Curses on her; but I will have her life first, ere she sees one guinea of my hoard!"
He saw Charley Green crossing the road.
"Ah, the boy comes back. 'Tis well. I don't know how or why it is, but the sight of that boy makes me uneasy. I think it will be better to cut his throat and have done with him."
Todd was suddenly silent. He saw two women pass, and as they did so, one pointed to his shop and said something to the other, who lifted up her hands as
I though in pious horror. One of these women was Mrs. Ragg, poor Tobias's mother. The other was a stranger to Todd, but she looked like what Mrs. Ragg had been, namely, a laundress in the temple.
"Curses!" he muttered.
Johanna entered the shop. Todd caught up his hat.
"Charley?"
"Yes, sir."
"I shall be gone five minutes. Be vigilant. If any one should come, you can say I have stepped a few doors off to trim Mr. Pentwheezle's whiskers."
"Yes, sir."
Todd darted from the shop, Mrs. Ragg and her friend were in that deep and