The String of Pearls (1850), p. 701

As Todd said this, he made one of his most hideous faces, so that the woman cried out with terror, and tried to snatch the child from him, but he held it with a firm grasp.

CHAPTER CLXV.
TODD GETS ON SHIP-BOARD.

"It is in vain," said Todd; "my safety is wound up now with the safety of this little one. If you would save it, you will save me."
"Oh, no, no. Why should it be so? I cannot save you."
"You can, I think. At all events, I will be satisfied if you make the effort to do so. I tell you I am pursued by the officers of the law. It does not matter to you what I am, or who I am, or what crime it is that they lay to my charge; your child's life is as dear to you in any case. Hide me in the cottage, and deny my being seen here, and the child shall live. Betray me, and as sure as the sun gives light, it dies."
"Oh, no, no, no!"
"But, I say, yes. Your course is easy. It is all but certain that my prosecutors will come to this cottage, as it is the only habitation on the route that I have taken. They will ask you if you have seen such a man as I am, and they will tell you that you may earn a large reward by giving such information as may deliver me into the hands of justice; but what reward—what sum of money would pay you for your child's life?"
"Oh, not all the world's worth!"
"So I thought; and so you will deny seeing me, or knowing ought of me, for your child's sake? Is it agreed?"
"It is—it is! God knows who you are, or what you have done that the hands of your fellow creatures should be raised against you; but I will not betray you. You may depend upon my word. If you are found in this place, it shall not be by any information of mine."
"Can you hide me?"
"I will try to do so. Come into the cottage. Ah! what noise is that? I hear the tread of feet, and the shouts of men!"
Todd paused to listen. He shook for a moment or two; and then, with a bitter tone, he said—
"My pursuers come! They begin to suspect the trick that I have played them!—they now know—or think they know, that I have turned upon my route. They come—they come!"
"Oh, give me the child! I swear to you that I will hide you to the utmost of my means; but give me the child!"
"Not yet."
The woman looked at him in an agony of tears.
"Listen to me," she said. "If they discover you it will not be my fault, nor the fault of this little innocent—you feel that! Ah ! then tell me upon what principle of justice can you take its life?"
"I will be just," said Todd. "All I ask of you is, to hide me to the best of your ability, and to keep secret the fact of my presence here. If, after you have done all that, you still find that I am taken, it will be no fault of yours. I do not ask impossibilities of any one, nor do I threaten punishment against you for not performing improbable feats. Come in—come in at once! They come—they come! Do you not hear them now?"
"It was quite evident now that a number of persons were approaching, and beating the bushes as they came on. The tread of a horse's feet, too, upon the road convinced Todd that among his foes, now, was the mounted man whom he had seen, and whom he thought he saw point to him as he lay crouching down behind the hedge, half hidden in the ditch.