Johanna started. "St. Dunstan's," said the stranger.
"What?" said Todd.
"St. Dunstan's last Sunday, I don't think was so highly-scented with the flavour of the grave as usual."
"Oh," said Todd.
Johanna trembled, for certainly Todd looked suspicious, and yet what could he have seen? Literally nothing, for he was so situated that the slight action of the stranger, in putting the slip of paper into her jacket-pocket, must have escaped him with all his watchfulness. She gathered courage. Todd glanced at her, saying—
"What is the matter, Charley? you don't look well at all, my lad."
"I am not very well, sir."
"How sorry I am; I think, do you know, Charley,"—Todd was lathering the man's face as he spoke—"that one of Mrs. Lovett's hot pies would be the thing for you."
"Very likely, sir."
"Then, I think I can manage now to spare you."
As he said this, Todd bent an eagle glance upon the gentleman who had ordered the wig, and it seemed as if he doled out his words to Johanna with a kind of reference to the movements of that personage. The gentleman had found a hat-brush, and was carefully rubbing up his hat.
"I do hope," he said, "that the wig will be as natural as possible."
"Depend upon it, sir," said Todd. "I'll warrant if you look in here, and try it on some day when there's no one here but you and I to set you against it, you will never complain of it."
"No doubt. Good morning."
Todd made his best bow, accompanied by the flourish of his razor, that made the man who was being shaved shrink again, as the reflected light from its highly-polished blade flashed again in his eyes.
"Now, Charley, I think you may go for your pie," added Todd, "and don't hurry, for if anything is wrong with your stomach, that will only make it worse, you know."
"You are a good master to the lad," said the man who was lathered ready for shaving.
"I hope so, sir," said Todd. "With the help of Providence we all ought to do our best in this world, and yet what a deal of wickedness and suffering there is in it too."
"Ah, there is."
"I am sure, sir, it makes my heart bleed sometimes to think of the amount of suffering that only twenty-four hours of this sad work-a-day world sees. But I was always of a tender and sympathetic turn from my cradle—yes from my cradle."
Todd made here one of his specially horrible grimaces, which the man happened to see in a glass opposite to him, the reflective focus of which Todd had not calculated upon; and then as the sympathetic barber stropped his razor, the man looked at him as though he would have speculated upon how could such an article looked in a cradle.
"Now, sir, a little to this side. Are you going, Charley?"
"Yes, sir."
"That will do, sir. I'll polish you off very shortly, indeed, sir. Are you going, Charley?"
Johanna darted from the shop, and the moment she got clear of it, she by natural impulse drew the little slip of paper from her pocket, and read upon it—
"Miss O. do not if you can help it leave any one alone in Todd's shop, as circumstances may prevent us from always following his customers in; but if you should be forced to leave while any one is there, knock at No. 133 Fleet Street. This is from your friend R. B."
"133?" said Johanna, as she glanced around her, "133? Ah, it is close at hand. Here—here."
The number was only a short distance from Todd's, and Johanna was making her way to it, when some one stopped her.
"From Todd's," said a voice.
"Yes—yes. A man is there."
"Alone?"
"Yes, and—"
Before she could say another word the stranger darted from her, and made his way into Todd's shop. Johanna paused, and shrinking into a doorway, stood trembling like an aspen leaf.
"Oh, Heaven!" she ejaculated, "into what a sea of troubles have I plunged. Murder and I will become familiar, and I shall learn to breathe an atmosphere of blood. Oh, horror! horror! horror!"
The crowd in that dense thoroughfare passed on, and no one took heed of the seeming boy, as he wept and sobbed in that doorway. Some had no time to waste upon the sorrows of other people;—some buttoned up their pockets as though they feared that the tears that stood upon that pale face were but the preludes to some pecuniary demand;—others again passed on rapidly, for they were so comfortable and cosy that they really could not have their feelings lacerated by any tale of misery, not they. And so Johanna wept alone.
Ding dong! ding dong!
What is that? Oh, St. Dunstan's chimes. How long has she been from the shop? Shall she return to it, or fly at once and seek for refuge from all the sorrows and from all the horrors that surround her, in the arms of her father?
"Direct me, oh God!" she cried.
Some one suddenly clasps her arm.
"Johanna! Johanna!"
It was Arabella Wilmot.
Johanna Disguised As A Boy, Is Found Weeping By Arabella, Near St. Dunstan's.
Johanna Disguised As A Boy, Is Found Weeping By Arabella, Near St. Dunstan's.
"Johanna—dear, dear Johanna, you are safe—quite safe. Come home now—oh, come—oh, come—come."
"You here, Arabella?"
"Yes, I am mad—mad!—at least, I was going mad, Johanna; in my agony to know what had become of you, and notwithstanding I have told Sir Richard Blunt, I had no faith in the love and the courage of any one but myself. 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, an............