Minna stepped lightly back and sat down. She clasped her hands very
tight indeed together, and then placed both upon her breast. _She had seen Todd._

Yes, Minna Grey had seen the man that had been, and who was for all she
knew to the contrary still to be, the bane of Tobias's existence. The
clear eyes of youth had noticed the lumbering figure as it lay upon the
stairs before them. And she did not scream--she did not cry for help--she did not faint, she
only crept back as we have seen, and held her hands upon her heart, and
looked at Tobias. There was no mistaking Todd. Once seen he was known for ever. Like some
hideous picture, there dwelt the memory of Sweeney Todd upon the young
imagination of the fair Minna Grey. Once before, a long time ago, so it seemed to her, she had seen him in
the Temple skulking up an old staircase. From that moment the face was
Daguerreotyped upon her brain. It was never to be forgotten, and with the face comes the figure too. That she saw upon the stairs. Alas! Poor Minn! "And so it was nothing but one of those odd accidents that will occur in
defiance of all experience, and calculation," said Tobias. "Just that," replied Minna. "Ah, my dear Minna. We are so safe here. It always seems to me as though
the very air of this house, belonging as it does to such a man, so full
of goodness as the colonel is, such that nothing very bad could live in
it for long." "I--I hope so--I think so.--What a calm and pleasant evening it is,
Tobias, did you see the new book of the seasons, so full of pretty
engravings in the shape of birds and trees, and flowers, that the
colonel has purchased." "New book?" "Yes, it lies in his small study, upon this floor. I will fetch it for
you, if you wish it, Tobias?" "Nay, I will go." "You are still weak. Remain in peace upon the couch, dear Tobias, and I
will go for you." Before she left the room, she kissed the forehead of the boy. A tear,
too, fell upon his hand. "Who knows," she thought, "that I shall ever see him in life again?" "Minna, you weep." "Weep? No--no--I am so--so happy." She hastily left the room. Todd had heard what had passed, and had
turned to hide himself again. The young girl knew that she passed the
murderer within a hair's breadth. She knew that he had but to stretch
out his right hand and say--"Minna Gray, you are my victim!" and his
victim she would have become. Was not that dreadful? And she so young
and so fair--so upon the threshold, as it were, of the garden of her
existence--so loving, and so well-beloved. She felt for a moment, as she
crossed the landing--just for a moment as though she were going mad. But
the eye of the Omnipotent was upon that house. She staggered on. She
made her way into a bed-room. It was the colonel's. Above the
mantel-shelf, supported on a small bracket, was a pair of pistols. They
were of a large size, and she had heard from the current gossip of the
house, how they were always loaded, and how the servants feared to touch
them, and how even they shrank from making the bed, lest the pistol from
some malice aforethought, or from something incidental to such watching,
should go off at once of their own accord, and inevitably shoot whoever
chanced to be in the room. Minna Gray laid her hand upon the dreaded
weapons. "For Tobias! for Tobias!" she gasped. Then she paused to listen. All was still as the grave. Todd was not yet
ready for the murder, or he wished to take their lives both together,
and in the one room. That was more probable. Then she began to think
that he must have some suspicion, and that it was necessary upon her
part to do something more than merely make no alarm. The idea of singing
occurred to her. It was a childish song that she had been taught, when a
pretty child, that she now warbled forth a few lines of--

    "If I were a forest bird,
      I'd shun the noisy town;
    I'd seek the verdure of the spring
      The dear autumnal brown. And even when the winter came,
      By sunny skies bereft,
    I'd sleep in some deep distant cave,
      Which wanton winds had left." She crossed the landing. "Minna," said Tobias. "My Minna!" "I come." She passed into the room, and the moment she crossed the threshold--she
turned her face to it and presented both the pistols before her. Then as
she wound, inch by inch, into the centre of the room, all her power of
further concealment of her feelings deserted her, and she could only
say, in a strange choking tone--

"Todd!--Todd!--Todd!" "No--no--no! Oh, God, no!" cried Tobias. "Todd!--Todd!--Todd!" "No--no! Help! help!" "D--n!" said Sweeney Todd, as he dashed open the door of the chamber,
and stood upon the threshold with a glittering knife in his right hand. "Hold!" shrieked Minna Gray. "Another step, murderer, and I send you to
your God!" Todd waited. He could almost see down the barrels of the large pistols,
which a touch of the young girl's finger would explode in his face. With
a sharp convulsive cry, Tobias fell to the floor. The blood gushed from
his mouth, and he lay bereft of sensation. [Illustration: Heroic Conduct Of Minna Gray.] "Away!" cried Minna. "Monster, away! Another moment, and as Heaven hears
me, I will fire; once--twice--"

Todd darted to the stair head, but he darted away again quicker than he
had gone there; for who, to his horror, should he meet, advancing with
great speed up the steps, but Mrs. Ragg, who had managed to get out of
the kitchen, and who bore, as a weapon of offence and defence, the large
kitchen poker, which was of a glowing red heat. Todd caught a touch of
it on his face. "Oh, you villain of the world!" cried Mrs. Ragg, "I'll teach you to come
here murdering people. My poor Tobias is no more, I know; but I'll take
the law of you, I will. Murder! murder! Police! Colonel!" With an alacrity, that was far beyond to all appearance Mrs. Ragg's
powers, that good lady pursued Todd with the red-hot poker. He dared not
take refuge in Tobias's room, for there stood Minna with the pistols in
her hand, so he darted up the first flight of stairs he saw, which led
to the top of the house. Mrs. Ragg pursued him; but when she got to the
head of the stairs, Minna pressed too hard upon the hair-trigger of one
of the pistols, and off it went. Mrs. Ragg fully believed herself shot,
and rolled down the stairs, poker included; while Todd, labouring under
the impression that the shot was at him, became still more anxious to
find some place of refuge. Upon the landing, which he was not a moment
in reaching, he found a great show of doors; for he was, in fact, upon
the floor from which all the sleeping rooms of the servants opened. It
was quite a chance that the first one he bounced into was one that had
in the roof a little square trap-door, facetiously called "a fire
escape;" but which, in the event of a fire, would have acquired the
agility of a harlequin, and the coolness of a tax-gatherer to get
through.