Moving forward into the room with a slow and stately action, so
that the little flame of the rushlight was by no means disturbed, she
reached the middle of the parlour and then she paused. She assumed such
a natural attitude of listening, that Sir Richard Blunt voluntarily
shrunk down behind the chair, for it seemed to him at the moment that
she must have heard him. Then, in a low and slightly indistinct tone,
she spoke--

"Hush! hush! So still. The poison! Where is the poison?--Will he take
it? Ah, that is the question, and yet how clear it is. But he is
fiend-like in his suspicions. When will he come?" She moved on towards the cupboard, in which the decanter of poisoned
wine had been placed, and opening it, she felt in vain upon the shelf
for it. It was still upon the table, and if anything more than another
could have been a convincing proof of the mere mechanical actions of the
somnambulist, this fact, that she passed the wine where it was, and only
recollected where it had been, would have been amply sufficient. After
finding that her search was ineffectual, she turned from the cupboard,
and stood for a few moments in silence. Then a horror shook her frame,
and she said--

"They must all die. Bandage your eyes, and you will shut out the death
shrieks. Yes, that will be something, to get rid of those frightful
echoes. Bandage after bandage will, and shall do it." Sir Richard stood silently watching; but such was the horror of the
tones in which she spoke, that even his heart felt cold, as though the
blood flowed but sluggishly through its accustomed channels. "Who," he thought to himself, "for the world's wealth, would have this
woman's memory of the past?" She still held the light, and it appeared to him as though she were
about to go into the shop, but she paused before she reached the
half-glass door of communication between it and the parlour, and shook
like one in an ague. "Another!--another!" she said. "How strange it is that I always know. The air seems full of floating particles of blood, and they all fall
upon me! Off, off. Oh, horror! horror! I choke--I choke. Off, I say. How
the hot blood steams up in a sickly vapour. There--there, now! Why does
Todd let them shriek in such a fashion?" She now shook so, that Sir Richard Blunt made sure she would either drop
the light she carried, or, at all events, shake it out, but neither of
these contingencies took place; and, after a few moments, she got more
calm. The violent agitation of her nerves gradually subsided. She spoke
horrors, but it was in a different tone; and abandoning, apparently, the
intention of going into the shop, she approached a portion of the
parlour which had not yet been subjected to the scrutiny of Sir Richard
Blunt, although it would not ultimately have escaped him. The appearance
of this part of the room was simply that there was there a cupboard, but
the back of this seeming cupboard formed, in reality, the door that led
down the flight of stairs to the other strong iron door that effectually
shut in the captive cook to his duties among the ovens. This was just
the place that Sir Richard Blunt wanted to find out; and here we may as
well state, that Sir Richard had an erroneous, but very natural idea,
under the circumstances, that the cook or cooks were accomplices of Mrs.
Lovett in her nefarious transactions. Had he been at all aware of the
real state of affairs below, our friend, who had become so thoroughly
disgusted with the pies, would not have been left for so long in so
precarious a situation. Mrs. Lovett paused, after opening the lock of
the cupboard, and in a strange, sepulchral sort of voice, she said--

"Has he done it?" "Done what?" Sir Richard would fain have asked; but, although he had
heard that people, when walking in their sleep, will answer questions
put to them under such circumstances, he was doubtful of the fact, and
by no means wished to break the trance of Mrs. Lovett. "Has he done it?" she again repeated. "Is he no more? How many does it
make? One--two--three--four--five--six--seven. Yes, seven, it must be
the seventh, and I have heard all. Hush! hush! Todd--Todd--Todd, I say. Are you dead? No--no. He would not drink the wine. The devil, his
master, whispered to him that it had in it the potent drug that would
send his spirits howling to its Maker, and he would not drink. God! he
would not drink! No--no--no!" She pronounced these words in such a tone of agony, that her awakening
from the strange sleep she was in, seemed to be a natural event from
such a strong emotion, but it did not take place. No doubt Mrs. Lovett
had been long habituated to these nocturnal rambles. She now began
slowly and carefully the descent of the stairs leading to the oven; but
she had not got many paces, when a current of air from below, and which,
no doubt, came through the small grating in the iron door, extinguished
her light. This circumstance, however, appeared to be perfectly
unnoticed by her, and she proceeded in the profound darkness with the
same ease as though she had had a light. Sir Richard would have followed
her as he was, but in the dark he did not feel sufficient confidence in
her as a guide to do so; and with as noiseless a tread as possible, he
went back, and fetched from the chimney-piece shelf his own little wax
light, which was still burning, and carefully guarding its flame from a
similar catastrophe to what had happened to Mrs. Lovett's light, he
descended the staircase, slowly and cautiously, after her. She went with
great deliberation, and it was not until being rather surprised at the
total absence of sound from her tread, that upon looking down to her
feet, he found that they were bare. After this, he could have no doubt
but that, almost immediately upon her lying down in bed, this
somnambulistic trance had come over her, and she had risen to creep
below, and go through the singular scene we are describing. Step by step
they both descended, until Mrs. Lovett came to the iron door. She did
not attempt to open it. If she had, Heaven only knows what might have
resulted from the desperate risk the captive cook might have made to
escape. But even in the madness of Mrs. Lovett--for a sort of madness
the scene she was enacting might be called--there was a kind of method,
and she had no idea of opening the iron door that shut the cook from the
upper world. Pausing, then, at the door leading to the ovens, she, with
as much facility as though she had had broad daylight to do it in,
unfastened the small square wicket in the top part of the window. A dull
reddish glare of light came through it from the furnaces, which night
nor day were extinguished. "Hist! 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 be so.