The String of Pearls (1850), p. 451

which both the medical man and the colonel thought they could distinguish the name of Todd.
"Yes," said the surgeon, "that is the spectre that is ever present to the imagination of this poor boy and we must speedily get rid of it from him, or it will assuredly kill him. I would not answer for his life another twenty-four hours, if his fancy were still to continue to be tortured by an expectation of the appearance of Todd."
"Will you, or shall I, speak to him?"
"You, if you please, colonel; he knows your voice better no doubt than he does mine."
Colonel Jeffery bent his head close down to Tobias's ear, and in a clear correct voice spoke to him.
"Tobias, I have come to say something very important to you. It is something which I hope will do you good to hear. Do you comprehend me, Tobias?"
The sufferer uttered a faint groan, as lie tossed one of his arms uneasily about upon the coverlet.
"You quite understand me, Tobias? Only say that you do so, and I shall be satisfied to go on, and say to you what I have to say."
"Todd, Todd!" gasped Tobias. "Oh, God! coming—he is coming."
"You hear," said the surgeon. "That is what his imagination runs upon. That is proof conclusive."
"It is, poor boy," said the colonel. "But I wish I could get him to say that he fully comprehends my words."
"Never mind that. I would recommend that you make the communication to him at once, and abruptly. It will, in all likelihood, thus have more effect than
if you dilate it by any great note of preparation before it reaches his ears."
The colonel nodded his acquiescence; and then, once more inclining his mouth to Tobias's ear, he said, in clear and moderately loud accents—
"Sweeney Todd is dead!"
Tobias at once sprang up to a sitting posture in the bed, and cried—
"No, no! Is it really so?"
"Yes," added the colonel. "Sweeney Todd is dead."
For a moment or two Tobias looked from the colonel to the surgeon, and from the surgeon to the colonel, with a bewildered expression of countenance,
and then burst into tears.
"That will do," said the surgeon.
"It has succeeded?" whispered the colonel.
"Fully. It could not do better. He will recover full consciousness now when those tears are over. All will go well with him; but do not, by word or look, insinuate the remotest doubt of the truth of what you have told him. It would be better to say the same thing to any of the servants that may come about him."
"I will—I will; and particularly to his master, whom I would as soon trust with a secret as I would with the command of a regiment of cavalry."
Tobias wept for the space of about ten minutes, and then he looked up with a face in which there was a totally different expression to what it had borne
but a short time previously, and with a faltering voice he spoke—
"And so Todd is gone at last?"
"He has," replied the colonel; "and, therefore, you may now, Tobias, make your mind quite easy about him."
"Oh, quite—quite!"
By the long breath that Tobias drew, it was evident what an exquisite relief it was to him to be able to feel that the man who had been the bane of his young life was no more. No assurance of protection from him could have come near the feeling of satisfaction that he now felt in the consciousness of such a release. But Todd being dead, settled the affair at once, There was no drawback upon his satisfaction.