"Humph! I thought I heard you speaking."
"I was only rehearsing my defence."
"Oh, well; that's a new dodge anyhow. You take it easy, Ma'am Lovett, if anybody ever did."
"Innocence, my friend, should be composed."
The turnkey stared at her through the little bars that crossed even that small orifice in the door, and then closed it without another word. He was scarcely used to such an amount of cool effrontery as he found exhibited by Mrs. Lovett.
"Alone again," she said. "Alone again. I must be cautious, or they will suspect my purpose. I must only converse with myself in faint whispers. I would not be thwarted willingly in this my last and boldest act; and I am resolved that I will not live to look upon the light of another day. I am resolved, and wound up to my purpose. Oh, what poor fools they are to fancy they can prevent such a one as I am from dying when and how I wish! They have unwittingly supplied me with the ready means of death to-day."
These words were spoken so low, that if the turnkey had been listening with all his might on the other side of the door he could not possibly have overheard them. The recent visit of that functionary, if the peep through the little opening in the door could be called a visit, had taught Mrs. Lovett to be more cautious how she trusted the air of her cell with the secret resolves of her teeming brain.
But now that she had really and truly made up her mind to commit suicide, all the worst passions of her nature seemed to be up in arms and to wage wild war in her heart and brain; while amid them all was the intense hatred of Todd, and the hope that she should be revenged upon him, by his being brought to death upon the scaffold, triumphant over every other.
"I had hoped," she said; "oh, how I had hoped, that I might have had the satisfaction of witnessing such a scene—but that is past now. I must go before him; but still it is with the conviction that die he must. I feel, I know that he will not have the courage to do as I am about to do, and if he had, I am certain he has not provided himself with the means of success as I have provided myself."
These last words she scarcely whispered to herself, so very fearful was she that they might be overheard by the turnkey who was so close at hand.