The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 268: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

260 a, the -w rnaces, '( which night nor day were extinguished. 7 “Fist! hist!’ said Mrs. Lovett. ‘Who speaks?” said a dull hollow voice, which sounded as if coming from the tomb. “ Who speaks to me?” Mrs. Lovett shut the small wicket in a moment. ‘* He has not done it, yet,’’ she said. ‘‘ He has not done it yet. No—no— no. But blood will flow—yes. It must beso. One—two—three—four—five —six--seven. The seventh, and not the last. Horrible! horrible!—most horrible! If, now, I could forget ¥ She began rapidly to ascend the stairs, so that Sir Richard Blunt had to take two at a step, and once three, in order to be up before her, and even then she reached the parlour so close upon him, that it was a wonder she did not touch him; but he succeeded in evading her by a hair's breadth, and then she stond profoundly still fora few moments with her hands clasped. This quiescent state, however, did not last long, for suddenly, with eagerness, she leaned for- ward, and spoke again. | ‘“No suspicion !” she said; “all is well!—Dear me, heap up thousands more. Oh, Todd, have we not enough ?—There, clean up that blood !—Here is acloth! —Stop it up—don’t you see where it is running to, like a live thing ?—He is not dead yet.—How clumsy.—Another blow with the hammer !—There—there—on the forehead !—What a crash !—Did the bone go that time ?>—-Why the eyes have started out!—Horror! horror !—Oh, God, no—no—no—I cannot come here again.—-Oh, God !—Oh, God !”” She sunk down upon the floor in a huddled up mass, and Sir Richard Blunt, who could not forbear shuddering at the last words that had come from her lips now he thought that her trance was over, rapidly appruaching her, said— ‘¢ Wretched woman, your career is over.” She suddenly rose, and with the same stately movement as before, she made her way from the parlour by the deor leading to the staircasee During all the strange scenes she had gone through, she had not abandoned the light, and al- though the air in the narrow passage of the staircase had extinguished it, she still continued to carry it with the same care as though it lit heron her way. Seeing that she still walked in that strange and hideous sleep, the magistrate let her pass him, nor did he make any attempt to follow her. ‘* Be it so,” he said. ‘‘ Let her awaken once again im the fancied security of her guilt. ‘Ihe doom of the murderess is hanging over her, and she shall not escape. But there is time yet.” He watched her until, by the turn of the stairs, sne disappeared from his sight, and then he sat down to think. And there, for a brief space, we leave Sir Richard, while we take a peep at Tobias. CHAPYER LVI. TOBIAS UNBOSOMS HIMSELF. Mrs. Raca, when she met Sweeney Todd, after he had so comfortably put out of this world of care, John Mundell, the usurer, was really upon a mission to Minna Gray, to tell her that Tobias was, to use her own expressive phraseo- logy—“ Never so much better.” Together with this news, Mrs. Ragg, at the colonel’s suggestion, sought the company of Minna to tea upon that afternoon; and the consent of all parties whom it might concern being duly obtained to that arrangement, we will suppose Minna upon her way to Colonel Jeffery’s. Timidly, and witha bashful boldness, if we may use the expression, did the fair young girl ring the area bell at the colonel’s. But he and his friend, Captain Rathbone, were both in the parlour, and saw her advance, so that she was at once welcomed comicbooks.com