"No, my little chap, I didn't; but I don't care who knows it—it's my 'pinion that whosomedever his master was, old Sweeney Todd, your master, knows more on him than most folks. Come away, Pison, will you?"
The dog did not now show much disinclination to follow the ostler, but he kept the waistcoat firmly in his grasp, as he left the shop after him. Johanna still held that little scrap of paper in her hand, and oh! what a world of food for reflection did it present her with. Was it, or was it not, an establishment of the fact of Mark Ingestrie having been Todd's victim? That was the question that Johanna put to herself, as through her tears, that fell like rain, she gazed upon that paper, with those few words upon it, in the well-known hand of her lover.
The more Johanna reflected upon this question, the more difficult a one did she find it to answer in any way that was at all satisfactory to her feelings. The strong presumption that Mark Ingestrie had fallen a victim to Todd had not been sufficiently obliterated by all that Sir Richard Blunt had said to her to free her mind from a strong bias to fancy anything that transpired at Todd's a corroboration of that fact.
"Yes," she said, mournfully, "yes, poor—poor Mark. Each day only adds to my conviction that you became this man's victim, and that that fatal String of Pearls, which you fondly thought would be a means of uniting us together by removing the disabilities of want of fortune, has been your death. That waistcoat, which your faithful dog has carried with him, is another relic of you, and this scrap of paper is but another link in the chain of circumstances that convinces me we shall never meet again in this world."
Poor Johanna was absolutely reasoning herself into an agony of grief, when the door of the shop opened, and an old man with white hair made his appearance.
"Is Mr. Todd within?" he said.
"No, sir," replied Johanna.
"And is it possible," added the old man, straightening himself up, "that I am disguised so well that even you do not know me, Johanna?"
In a moment now she recognised the voice. It was that of Sir Richard Blunt.
"Oh, sir," she said, "I do indeed know you now, and I am very—very wretched."