"Humph!—ah! No, I would rather not exactly. But quite rejoicing that you are in so very pious a frame of mind, I shall have the pleasure of seeing you to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock."
"That will do very well," said Mrs. Lovett.
The chaplain, thinking he had made quite a wonderful convert in Mrs. Lovett, and with serious thoughts of getting somebody to write a tract for him on the subject, left the cell, little suspecting how he was to be duped.
"Well, you did gammon him," said the turnkey, "I will say that for you."
"Can you not leave me a light?"
"Agin the rules. Can't do it; but I'll wait till you have put the mattress to rights, if you like."
"Oh, no. It will do very well. Good night."
"Good night, Ma'am Lovett, and thank you for me. They may say what they likes about you, but I will stick up for you, so far that you are liberal with your tin, and that's a very good thing indeed. I ain't quite sure that it isn't everything, as this here world goes."
The door of the cell was closed, and the last rays of the turnkey's candle disappeared. Mrs. Lovett was alone again in her dreary cell.
The darkness now was very intense, indeed: for during the few minutes that she had been conversing with the chaplain, the twilight had almost faded away, dropping quite into night, so that not an object was visible in the cell. She heard the turnkey's footsteps die away in the distance, and then indeed she felt truly alone.