She burst into a passion of hysterical weeping. Sir Richard Blunt knew too much of human nature to interfere by word or gesture, with this effort of nature to relieve the overchanged heart, and he waited patiently, affecting to be looking upon some old prints upon the wall until he heard the sobs decrease to sighs. Then he turned with a smile to Johanna, and said—
"My dear girl, gather hope from that scrap of paper, not despair. Depend upon it the address of your father held too conspicuous a place in the heart of him who loved you to require that it should have been written upon a piece of paper. You know that my theory on the subject is that Mr. Thornhill was actually sent to you by Mark Ingestrie, and that it was he who perished here."
"And Mark himself—if that were so?"
"His fate has still to be elucidated; but that he perished here I do not believe, as I have often told you."
"This is an exquisite relief," said Johanna, as she laid her hand upon her heart.
"Make much of it," said Sir Richard; "something even yet seems to tell me that you will be happy. I cannot think it possible that Heaven would permit such a man as Todd to destroy your earthly felicity. But how comes the shop in such confusion?"
"It was the dog. He would look everywhere, and I had not the heart nor the strength to prevent him. Todd has a horror of him; and fright will keep him quiet when I tell him the cause of the mischief that is done here."
"Perhaps then it will be better to leave it as it is," said Sir Richard, "than awaken his suspicions by attempting to put the place to rights, in which you might fail in some particulars known to him. And now tell me, Johanna, what passed between him and this Mrs. Lovett?"
"But a few words, sir, before I was sent out. There is one thing though that I suspect, and that is that Mrs. Lovett has found out my secret."
"Indeed?"