I was coming to Todd's." "To Todd's?" "Yes, dear, to Todd's. I could no longer exist unless I saw with my own
eyes that you were safe." "What a fatal step that might have been." "It might. Perhaps it would; but God, in his goodness, has again, my
dear Johanna, averted it by enabling me to meet you here. Come home
now--come at once." "Yes, I--I think--"

"Come--come;--you have done already much. Let, for the future, your
feelings be, that for Mark Ingestrie you have adventured what not one
girl in a million would adventure." At this mention of the name of Mark Ingestrie, a sharp cry of mental
agony burst from the lips of Johanna. "Oh, I thank you, Arabella." "Thank me?" "Yes, you have recalled me to myself. You have, by the mention of that
name, recalled me to my duty, from which I was shrinking and falling
away. You have told me in the most eloquent language that could be used
that as yet I have done nothing for him who is, dead or alive, my
heart's best treasure." "Oh, Johanna, you will kill me." "No, Arabella--no. Good bye. Go home, love--go home, and--and pray for
me--pray for me!" "Johanna, for mercy's sake! what are you about to do? Speak to me. Do
not look upon me in that way. What are you about to to do, Johanna?" "Go to the shop." "To Todds?" "Yes. It is my place--I am in search of Mark Ingestrie. If he be living,
it is I who must clear that man who is suspected of his murder. If he be
no more, it is I, who weak and fragile as I am, must drag him to
justice." "No--no--no." "I say yes. Do not stay me if you love me." Arabella clasped the arm of Johanna, but with a strength that only the
immense amount of mental excitement she was suffering from could have
given her. Johanna freed herself from the hold of her friend, and
dashing from the doorway, was in another moment lost to the sight of
Arabella in the barber's shop. "What now?" cried Todd, fiercely, as Johanna bounded into the shop so
hurriedly. "Nothing, sir--only the dog." "Bolt the door--bolt the door." "Yes, sir." Todd wiped his brow. "That infernal dog," he muttered, "will be the death of me yet; and so,
Charley, the malignant beast flew at you, did he? the savage will attack
you, will he?" "Yes, sir, so it seems." "We will kill it. I should like to cut its throat. It would be a
pleasure, Charley. How strange that strong poisons have no effect upon
that dog. Curses on it!" "Indeed, sir." "None whatever. It is very odd." Todd remained in a musing attitude for some time, and then suddenly
starting, he said--

"Charley, if that man come again after his wig, get him into talk, will
you, and learn all you can about him. I have to go a little way into the
city just now, and shall speedily return. I hoped you liked the pie?" "Pie, sir?" "Yes, Lovett's pie." "Oh, yes--delicious." "Ha! ha! he! he! ho!" Drawing on a pair of huge worsted gloves, Todd walked out of the shop
without saying another word. The moment he was gone, Johanna passed both
her hands upon her breast, as if to stay the wild beating of her heart,
as she whispered to herself--

"Alone--alone once more." It was well that she had only whispered that much, for in the next
moment Todd gently put his head into the shop. She started. "Oh, sir--oh, sir, you frightened me." "Beware!" was all he said. "Beware!" The frightful head, more terrifying to Johanna than would have been the
fabled Medusa's, was withdrawn again, and this time Johanna resolved to
be certain that he was gone before she gave the smallest outbreak to her
feelings, or permitted herself to glance around her in any way that
could be construed into prying curiosity. She made a feint of clearing
up the place a little, and, with a broom that had about six hairs only
left in it, she swept the hobs of the little miserable grate in which a
fire was kept for the shaving-water. This occupied some little time; but
still not feeling sure that Todd was really gone, she then went to the
door, and looked right and left. He was not to be seen; and so, when she
went back, she bolted the shop-door upon the inside again, and really
felt that she was alone once more in that dreadful place. That poor
Johanna was now in a great state of mental excitement is not a matter of
surprise, for the events that had recently taken place were decidedly of
a character to produce such a mental condition. The interview with
Arabella had, no doubt, materially aided in such an effect. With
trembling eagerness she now began again to look about her, and her great
aim was by some means to get into the parlour, for if anywhere, she
thought that surely there she should find some traces of that lost one
who occupied, since the suspicions of the foul usage he had met with, a
larger place in her affections than before. Feeling how surrounded she
was by friends, probably Johanna was a little more reckless as regarded
the means she adopted of carrying out her intention. The parlour-door
was quite fast; but surely in the shop she thought she might find some
weapon, by the aid of which it could be burst open; and even if Todd
should suddenly return, it was but a rush, and she would reach the
street; and if he intercepted her in that, as God knew he might, she
could take the means of summoning assistance pointed out to her by Sir
Richard Blunt, and cast something through the window into the street. Full of these thoughts and feelings, then, and only alive to the mad
wish she had of discovering some traces of her lover, Johanna hunted the
shop over for some weapon with which to attack the parlour-door. She
opened a cupboard. A hat fell from within at her feet! One glance at
that hat was sufficient; it was of a peculiar colour--she remembered it. It was the hat of the man whom she had left being shaved when she was
sent ostensibly to purchase a pie at Mrs. Lovett's, in Bell-yard. Johanna's hurry was over. A sickening feeling came over her as she asked
herself what was the probable fate of the owner of the hat. "Another victim!--another victim!" she gasped. She tottered back overpowered by the thought that there had been a time
when, opening that cupboard door, the carelessly cast-in hat of Mark
Ingestrie would have fallen to her feet, even as did that of the
stranger, who, no doubt, now was numbered with the dead. She sank almost
in a state of fainting into the shaving-chair. "Oh, yes, yes," she said. "This is horribly, frightfully condusive. My
poor Mark. You have gone before me to that home where alone we may hope
to meet again. Alas! alas! that I should live to feel such a truth." She burst into tears, and sobbed so bitterly, that any one who had seen
her would have truly thought her heart was breaking in that wild
paroxysm of grief. What a mercy it was that Todd did not come in at such
a moment as that, was it not? The sobs subsided into sighs. The tears no
longer flowed in abundance; and after about five minutes Johanna arose,
tottering and pale.