The String of Pearls (1850), p. 615

observed, suddenly crossed the way, and boldly went up to the door of old St. Dunstan s Church.
When once close to the door of the old building, he was so much in shadow that he felt tolerably secure from observation, but still he lingered a little, for he did not want to do anything so hastily as to rob it of its caution.
With his back against the church-door he glanced right and left, and then for the space of five minutes he bent all his faculties to the one task of ascertaining if any one was sufficiently near to watch him, and he got perfectly satisfied that such as not the case He stood securely against the old church door.
"So far," he muttered, "I am safe—quite safe."

CHAPTER CXLIV.
TODD MAKES HIS WAY INTO HIS OWN HOUSE.

When Todd was satisfied that he was not watched or even observed by any one, he turned and commenced operations upon the door of the church. The cunning person who had put on the lock, had had a notion in his necromantic head, that the larger you made a lock the better it was, and the less likely to be picked; and the consequence of this was, that Todd found no difficulty in opening the church-door.
The moment he felt the lock yield to the false key he employed, he took another keen glance around him, and, seeing no one, slipped into ,the sacred edifice and closed the door behind him. Feeling, then, up and down the door until his hand touched a bolt, he shot it into its socket, and then a feeling of great security took possession of him, although the interior of the church was most profoundly dark, and any one would have thought that such a man as Todd—in such a place—could hardly have been free from some superstitious terrors.
An overbearing selfishness, however, mingled with the most vengeful and angry feelings, kept Todd above all these sensations, which are mostly the result of vacant mindedness.
The church felt cold, and the silence had about it a character such as the silence of no other kind of place has. It may be imagination, but the silence of a church deserted, always appears to us to be a silence different from any other, as the silence in a wood is entirely different from any other description of stillness.
"All is quiet enough here," whispered Todd. "I and the dead have this place to ourselves now, and so we have often had it. Many a time have I waided about this building in the still hours of the night, when all London slept, and opened some little window, with the hope of letting out the stench from the dead bodies before the morning should bring people to the building; but it wou d not do. The smell of decomposition lingered in the air, and it is here still, though not so bad. Yes, it is here still! I can smell it now, and I know the odour well."
Todd was sufficiently familiar with St. Dunstan's church almost to go over even at that hour, and amid that darkness, without running against anything; but yet he was very careful as he went, and kept his arms outstretched before him. He dreaded to get a light, although he had the means of doing so, or Mr. Lupin had, at his request, given him some of the matches and little wax-candle-ends that the pious lady had supplied him with. Yet Todd knew ow small a light would suffice to shine through some of the richly stained glass of the church, and therefore he dreaded to give himself a light.
He felt confident that he should have no sort of difficulty in getting into the vaults, for in consequence of recent events the stone that covered up the entrance
could not be fast, and he knew from past experience that his strength was sufficient to raise it if he once got hold of it, and if it were not fastened down by cement, which, no doubt, was not the case now.