"You are free now."
"I—am—sir."
"And yet you are very unhappy."
The cook started and changed colour slightly. He filled, for himself, a glass of wine, and after drinking it he heaved a sigh, as he said—
"Sir, I am unhappy. I do not care how soon the world and I part, sir. The hope—the dream of my life has gone from me. All that I lived for—all that I cherished as the brightest expectation of joy in this world has passed away like a vapour, and left not a rack behind. I am unhappy, and better, far better, would it have been for me if Sweeney Todd had taken my life, or if by some subtle poison, Mrs. Lovett had shuffled me out of the world—I am unhappy."
"Indeed! And you really think you have nothing in this world now to live for?"
"I do. But it is not a thought only. It is a knowledge—it is a fact that cannot be gainsaid or controverted. I tell you, sir, that I can never now hope to realise the happiness which was the day-dream of my existence, and which has passed from me like a dream, never—never to come again. It was in the despair contingent upon such thoughts and feelings, that I went to Mrs. Lovett and became her slave; but now I will be off far away from England, and on some foreign shore I will lay my bones."
"But, my good sir, you will be wanted on the trial of your old friend, Mrs. Lovett."
"Cannot you hang the woman without my help?"
"Yes, I think we might, but so material a witness to her infamy as yourself cannot be dispensed with. Of course I do not pretend to be a conjuror, or to say to any man—'You shall be happy in spite of all your prognostications to the contrary;' but from what you have told me of your story, I must confess that to my perception you take much too gloomy a view of your condition."