The String of Pearls (1850), p. 309

Now Todd's question was no doubt a result of some peculiar sensations that had come over him ; but, propounded as it was to silence and to vacancy, it of
course got no answer. A cold perspiration had suddenly broke out upon his brow, and, for the space of about ten minutes, he was subject to one
of those strange foreshadowings of coming ills to him, which of late had begun to make his waking hours anything but joyous, and his dreams hideous.
"What can it mean?" he said. "What can it mean?"
He wiped his face with a miserable looking handkerchief, and then, with a deep sigh, he said—
"It is that fiend in the shape of a woman!"
No doubt he meant his dear friend, Mrs. Lovett. Alas! what a thorn she was in the side of Sweeney Todd. How poor a thing, by way of recompense for the dark and terrible suspicions he had of her, was his heaped up wealth? Todd—yes, Sweeney Todd, who had waded knee-deep—knee-deep do we say?—lip-deep in blood for gold, had begun to find that there was something more precious still which he had bartered for it—peace! That peace of mind—that sweet serenity of soul, which, like the love of God, is beautiful, and yet passeth understanding. Yes, Todd was beginning to find out that he had bartered the jewel for the setting! What a common mistake. Does not all the world do it?
They do; but the difference between Todd and common people merely was that he played the game with high stakes.
"Yes," added Todd, after a pause, "curses on her, it is that fiend in the shape of a woman, who
'Cows my better part of man,'
and she or I must fall. That is settled; yes—she or I. There was a time when I used to say she and I could not live in the same country; but now I feel that
we cannot both live in the same world. She must go—she must lapse into the sleep of death."
Todd rose, and stalked to and fro in his shop. He felt as if something was going to happen: that undefinable fidgetty feeling which will attack all persons at times, came over him, and yet it was not a feeling of deep apprehension that was at his heart.
"Oh," he muttered, "it is the recollection of that dreadful woman—that fiend, who, with a seeming prescience, knows when there is poison in her glass,
and baffles me. It is the dim and shadowy thought of what I must do with her that shatters me. If poison will not do the deed, steel or a bullet must. Ah!"
Some one was trying the handle of the shop door, and so timidly was it tried, that Todd stood still to listen, without saying "Come in," or otherwise encouraging the visitor.
"Who is it?" he gasped.
Still the handle of the door-lock only shook. To be sure, it was a difficult door to open to all who did not know it well. Todd had taken care of that, for if there was anything more than another which such a man as he might be fairly enough presumed to dislike, it would be to be glided in upon by the sudden
opening of an easy-going door.
"Come in," he now cried.
The person without was evidently anxious to obey the invitation, and a more strenuous effort was made to unfasten the door. It yielded at length. A young
and pretty looking lad, apparently of about thirteen or fourteen years of age, stood upon the threshold. He and Sweeney Todd looked at each other in
silence for a few moments. If a painter or a sculptor could have caught them as they stood, and transferred them to canvas or to marble, he might have called
them an idea of Guilt and Innocence. There was Todd, with evil passions and wickedness written upon every feature of his face. There was the boy, with the rosy gentleness and innocence of Heaven upon his brow.