Her preservation depends upon yourself, and
upon yourself wholly. You have but to keep silent, and she is safe; but
if you utter one word that shall be displeasing to me about my affairs,
mark me, Tobias, she comes to the scaffold; and if I cannot conveniently
place you in the same mad-house where the last boy I had was placed, I
shall certainly be under the troublesome necessity of cutting your
throat." "I will be silent--I will say nothing, Mr. Todd. I know I shall die
soon, and then you will get rid of me altogether, and I don't care how
soon that may be, for I am quite weary of my life--I shall be glad when
it is over." "Very good," said the barber; "that's all a matter of taste. And now,
Tobias, I desire that you look cheerful and smile, for a gentleman is
outside feeling his chin with his hand, and thinking he may as well come
in and be shaved. I may want you, Tobias, to go to Billingsgate, and
bring me a pennyworth of shrimps." "Yes," thought Tobias, with a groan--"yes, while you murder him." CHAPTER XV. THE SECOND INTERVIEW BETWEEN JOHANNA AND THE COLONEL IN THE TEMPLE
                                GARDENS. Now that there was a great object to gain by a second interview with
Colonel Jeffery, the anxiety of Johanna Oakley to have it became
extremely great, and she counted the very hours until the period should
arrive when she could again proceed to the Temple-gardens with something
like a certainty of finding him. The object, of course, was to ask him
for a description of Mr. Thornhill, sufficiently accurate to enable her
to come to something like a positive conclusion as to whether she ought
to call him to her own mind as Mark Ingestrie or not. And Colonel
Jeffery was not a bit the less anxious to see her than she was to look
upon him; for although in divers lands he had looked upon many a fair
face, and heard many a voice that had sounded soft and musical in his
ears, he had seen none that, to his mind, was so fair, and had heard no
voice that he had considered really so musical and charming to listen
to, as Johanna Oakley's. A man of more honourable and strict sense of
honour than Colonel Jeffery could not have been found, and, therefore,
it was that he allowed himself to admire the beautiful under any
circumstances, because he knew that his admiration was of no dangerous
quality, but that, on the contrary, it was one of those feelings which
might exist in a bosom such as his, quite undebased by a meaner
influence. We think it necessary, however, before he has his second
meeting with Johanna Oakley, to give such an explanation of his thoughts
and feelings as it is in our power. When first he met her, the purity of
her mind, and the genuine and beautiful candour of all she said, struck
him most forcibly, as well as her great beauty, which could not fail to
be extremely manifest. After that he began to reason with himself as to
what ought to be his feelings with regard to her--namely, what portion
of these ought to be suppressed, and what ought to be encouraged. If
Mark Ingestrie were dead, there was not a shadow of interference or
dishonour in him, Colonel Jeffery, loving the beautiful girl, who was
surely not to be shut out of the pale of all affection because the first
person to whom her heart had warmed with a pure and holy passion, was no
more. "It may be," he thought, "that she is incapable of feeling a sentiment
which can at all approach that which once she has felt; but still she
may be happy and serene, and may pass many joyous hours as the wife of
another." He did not positively make these reflections as applicable to himself,
although they had a tendency that way, and he was fast verging to a
state of mind which might induce him to give them a more actual
application. He did not tell himself that he loved her--no, the word
"admiration" took the place of the more powerful term; but then, can we
not doubt that, at this time, the germ of a very pure and holy affection
was lighted up in the heart of Colonel Jeffery for the beautiful
creature who suffered the pangs of so much disappointment, and who loved
one so well, who, we almost fear, if he were living, was scarcely the
sort of person fully to requite such an affection. But we know so little
of Mark Ingestrie, and there appears to be so much doubt as to whether
he be alive or dead, that we should not prejudge him upon such very
insufficient evidence. Johanna Oakley did think of taking Arabella
Wilmot with her to this meeting with Colonel Jeffery, but she abandoned
the idea, because it really looked as if she was either afraid of him or
afraid of herself, so she resolved to go alone; and when the hour of
appointment came, she was then walking upon that broad gravelled path,
which has been trodden by some of the best, and some of the most
eminent, as well as some of the worst of human beings. It was not likely
that with the feelings of Colonel Jeffery towards her, he would keep her
waiting. Indeed, he was then a good hour before the time, and his only
great dread was, that she might not come. He had some reason for this
dread, because it will be readily recollected by the reader, that she
had not positively promised to come; so that all he had was a hope that
way tending and nothing further. As minute after minute had passed away,
she came not, although the time had not yet really arrived; his
apprehension that she would not give him the meeting had grown in his
mind almost to a certainty, when he saw her timidly advancing along the
garden walk. He rose to meet her at once, and for a few moments after he
had greeted her with kind civility she could do nothing but look
inquiringly in his face, to know if he had any news to tell her of the
object of her anxious solicitude. "I have heard nothing, Miss Oakley," he said, "that can give you any
satisfaction concerning the fate of Mr. Thornhill, but we have much
suspicion--I say we, because I have taken a friend into my
confidence--that something serious must have happened to him, and that
the barber, Sweeney Todd, in Fleet-street, at whose door the dog so
mysteriously took his post, knows something of that circumstance, be it
what it may." He led her to a seat as she spoke, and when she had recovered
sufficiently the agitation of her feelings to speak, she said in a
timid, hesitating voice--

"Had Mr. Thornhill fair hair, and large, clear, grey eyes?" "Yes, he had such; and, I think, his smile was the most singularly
beautiful I ever beheld in a man." "Heaven help me!" said Johanna. "Have you any reason for asking that question concerning Thornhill?" "God grant I had not; but, alas! I have indeed. I feel that in
Thornhill, I must recognise Mark Ingestrie himself." "You astonish me." "It must be so, it must be so; you have described him to me, and I
cannot doubt it; Mark Ingestrie and Thornhill are one! I knew that he
was going to change his name, when he went out upon that wild adventure
to the Indian Sea. I was well aware of that fact."