you a day longer for my tenant or my servant. If you
dispute my claim,--as I am told you do,--you may take what lawful means
you please to dispossess me of my estate, and at the same time redress
what wrong is done you."

Seeing his secret treachery discovered, Simon falls now to his whining
arts, telling once more of his constant toil to enrich her, his thrift
and self-denial; nay, he even carries it so far as to show that he did
but incite Mr. Godwin to dispute her title to the estate, that thereby
her claim should be justified before the law to the obtaining of her
succession without further delay, and at the expense of her cousin,
which did surpass anything I had ever heard of for artfulness. But this
only incensed Moll the more.

"What!" cries she, "you would make bad blood between two cousins, to the
ruin and disgrace of one, merely to save the expense of some beggarly
fees! I'll hear no more. Go at once, or I will send for my servants to
carry you out by force."

He stood some moments in deliberation, and then he says, with a certain
dignity unusual to him, "I will go." Then he casts his eye slowly round
the room, with a lingering regard for his piles of documents and
precious boxes of title deeds, as if he were bidding a last farewell to
all that was dear to him on earth, and grotesque as his appearance might
be, there was yet something pathetic in it. But even at this moment his
ruling passion prevailed.

"There is no need," says he, "to burst these goodly locks by force. I do
bethink me the keys are here" (opening a drawer, and laying them upon
the table). Then dropping his head, he goes slowly to the door, but
there he turns, lifting his head and fixing his rheumy eyes on Moll. "I
will take nothing from this house, not even the chattels that belong to
me, bought from the mean wage I have allowed myself. So shalt thou judge
of my honesty. They shall stand here till I return, for that I shall
return I am as fully persuaded as that a just God doth dispose of his
creatures. Thee hast might on thy side, woman, but whether thee hast
right as well, shall yet be proven--not by the laws of man, which are an
invention of the devil to fatten rogues upon the substance of fools, but
by the law of Heaven, to which I do appeal with all my soul" (lifting
high his shaking hands). "Morning and night I will pray that God shall
smite with heavy hand which of us two hath most wronged the other. Offer
the same prayer if thee