What language would be strong enough to depict
the storm of passion that raged in the bosom of that imperious woman? It must suffice, that she made herself a solemn promise of vengeance
against Todd, let the risk or the actual consequences to herself be what
they might. If with perfect safety to herself she could be revenged upon
him--of course she would; but she resolved not to hesitate, even if it
involved a self-sacrifice, so full of the very agony of rage was she. "He shall hang--he shall hang!" Such were the words she uttered as the lumbering hackney-coach reached
Fleet Street. For all she knew to the contrary, Todd might be looking from his door,
for that he had gone home in great triumph at the thought of having got
rid of her she did not doubt; and so as it was just then a great object
with her to keep him in that pleasant delusion, she got quite down among
the straw at the bottom of the hackney-coach. But she kept her eyes--those bright metallic-looking eyes, which, with a
questionable taste, had been so much admired by the lawyers' clerks of
the Temple and Lincoln's Inn--she kept her eyes just on the edge of the
coach window, so that she might have a passing glance at Todd's shop. Todd was at the door. How pleased and self-satisfied he looked! He was rubbing his huge hands
slowly together, and a grim smile was on his horrible features. Mrs. Lovett clinched her hands until her nails made marks in the palms
of them that did not come out for hours, and in a harsh growling voice,
she said--

"Ah, grin on, grin on, fiend--your hours from now shall be numbered. You
shall hang, hang, and I shall hope to see you in your last agony. If any
bribe can induce the hangman, by some common bungling to protract your
pain, he has but to name his price and he shall have it." The coach rolled on. Mrs. Lovett rose up from among the straw with a shudder. The immersion
in the river had not drowned her certainly, but it had done her no good;
and she could not conceal from herself, that a serious illness might
very probably result from her unexpected cold bath. "Never mind!" she said. "Never mind! What care I so that I complete my
revenge against Todd? If I die after that it will not much matter. I
will have my revenge." The coach stopped at the corner of Bell-yard. "That will do," said Mrs. Lovett as she pulled the check-string. "That
will do. I will alight here." She paid the coachman double the amount of his fare, so he only muttered
a few curses between his teeth, and drove off. With quite a staggering step, for Mrs. Lovett was anything but well, she
walked to her own shop. The door was closed, and she looked through the
upper half of it which was of glass, just in time to see the highly
trustworthy personage whom she had left in charge of the concern, place
a bottle to her lips, and slowly lift it up. Mrs. Lovett opened the door, just as the titillating contents of the
bottle were rippling over the palate of the lady, who had had such an
adventure with Todd. "Wretch!" exclaimed Mrs. Lovett. Down fell the bottle, and smashed into many fragments on the floor of
the shop. An unmistakable odour of gin filled the air. "So," cried Mrs. Lovett, "this is the way you employ your time is it,
while I am away?" [Illustration: Mrs. Lovett Finds Somebody Out--At Home.] "T--T--Todd," stuttered the woman, "T--T--Todd is such a nice man." "Todd, do you say?" "Yes--I--I say--T--Todd is a nice man." "Answer me, wretch, instantly. Has he been here? Speak, or I will shake
your wretched life out of you." Mrs. Lovett suited the action to the word, and the word to the action,
for she clutched her substitute by the throat, and shook her vehemently. "D--D--Don't Mrs. L.--I--will--tell all--all. I will indeed." "Speak then. Has Todd been here?" "In course, and quite a nice man--I--I may say--quite a gin--I mean a
nice man--a cordial old Tom. No! Cream of the--Todd." "Wretch!" Mrs. Lovett paced the shop for a few moments in an agony of rage. Todd
presuming upon her death had actually been there, no doubt upon an
expedition to ransack the place. A touch to the lock of the parlour
door, told her at once that it was open, and from that moment she no
longer could doubt but that the whole house had been subject to the
scrutiny of Sweeney Todd. "The wretch!" she said. "He thought to find enough no doubt to reward
his pains, but he has been deceived in that hope, I feel well assured. What I have here, I have too well hidden for any search of a few hours
to find it. If they were to pull the house to pieces, brick by brick and
timber by timber, they might find something to pay them for their
labour." The lady with the partiality for gin, now seemed to be lapsing into a
state of somnolency, but Mrs. Lovett gave her rather a rough shake. "Tell me," she said, "when did this man come, and what did he say to
you?" "Gin!" "I ask you what Todd said to you?" "Oh, yes. I--really--fine times. Old Tom Todd--cream of the Todd." It was quite clear that she was too far gone in drunkenness for anything
distinct or to be relied upon to be got from her, and the only thing
Mrs. Lovett had to do, was to consider what to do with her. If she threw
her out of the shop into the court, the probability was, that a crowd
would collect round her, and that was just what Mrs. Lovett did not
want. Indeed, for all she, Mrs. Lovett knew, the drunken woman might
stagger round to Todd's, and let him know what of all things, she wished
to keep secret from him, namely, that she had returned. Mrs. Lovett had not yet formed her plans, and certainly until she had
done so, she did not want any premature knowledge of her rescue from
drowning to reach the ears of Todd. But what to do with the drunken woman was the question. Mrs. Lovett had
to think a little over that. At length, however, she made up her mind,
and approaching the lady who had such a partiality for Old Tom, she
said--

"Did you ever taste my cordial spirit, that I have up stairs in my
bedroom?" "Eh?" "Come, I will give you a bottle of it, if you will walk up stairs. Only
try." By the assistance of Mrs. Lovett, the gin heroine rose and tottered to
the staircase; Mrs. Lovett pushed her on, and stair by stair she managed
to mount to the first floor. It was by far too great a job to get her
any further, so opening the door of the back-room, Mrs. Lovett pushed
her in with violence, and slammed the door upon her. "Lie there and rot," she said, "so that you are out of my way. Lie there
and rot, idiot." Without then pausing to cast another thought or look at her victim, Mrs.
Lovett walked down the staircase again to the shop. When there, she felt a kind of faintness come over her, and she was
compelled to sit down for a few minutes to recover herself. "How much I have to think of," she said, when she had a little
recovered. "How much I have to think of, and how little a time in which
to think. Something must be done before midnight. Todd will fly if I do
not do something."