The String of Pearls (1850), p. 327

"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,