Mrs. Lovett was soon dressed, and at her request a coach was sent for; and in the course of half-an-hour from the time that the landlady had asked her if she should send for her friends, she, Mrs. Lovett, was bowling along the dense thoroughfares of the city to her home.
What pen could describe the dark and malignant thoughts that filled her brain as she proceeded? What language would be strong enough to depict the storm of passion that raged in the bosom of that imperious woman?
It must suffice, that she made herself a solemn promise of vengeance against Todd, let the risk or the actual consequences to herself be what they might. If with perfect safety to herself she could be revenged upon him—of course she would; but she resolved not to hesitate, even if it involved a self-sacrifice, so full of the very agony of rage was she.
"He shall hang—he shall hang!"
Such were the words she uttered as the lumbering hackney-coach reached Fleet Street.
For all she knew to the contrary, Todd might be looking from his door, for that he had gone home in great triumph at the thought of having got rid of her she did not doubt; and so as it was just then a great object with her to keep him in that pleasant delusion, she got quite down among the straw at the bottom of the hackney-coach.
But she kept her eyes—those bright metallic-looking eyes, which, with a questionable taste, had been so much admired by the lawyers' clerks of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn—she kept her eyes just on the edge of the coach window, so that she might have a passing glance at Todd's shop.
Todd was at the door.
How pleased and self-satisfied he looked! He was rubbing his huge hands slowly together, and a grim smile was on his horrible features.
Mrs. Lovett clinched her hands until her nails made marks in the palms of them that did not come out for hours, and in a harsh growling voice, she said—