ove of work and of his art, and that his
mind was free from any taint of misgiving, as regards his wife's
honesty. 'Tis likely enough, that spite her caution, many a word and
sign escaped Moll, which an enemy would have quickly seized on to prove
her culpable; but we do never see the faults of those we love (or,
seeing them, have ready at a moment excuse to prove them no faults at
all), and at this time Mr. Godwin's heart was so full of love, there was
no place for other feeling. Venom from a rose had seemed to him more
possible than evil, from one so natural, sweet, and beautiful as Moll.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

_Moll plays us a mad prank for the last time in her life._

About once in a fortnight I contrived to go to London for a couple of
days on some pretext of business, and best part of this time I spent
with Dawson. And the first visit I paid him after the return of Moll and
her husband, telling him of their complete happiness, Moll's increasing
womanly beauty, and the prosperous aspect of our affairs (for I had that
day positive assurance our seal would be obtained within a month), I
concluded by asking if his mast might not now be stepped, and he be in a
position to come to Chislehurst and see her as he had before.

"No, Kit, thanking ye kindly," says he, after fighting it out with
himself in silence a minute or two, "better not. I am getting in a
manner used to this solitude, and bar two or three days a week when I
feel a bit hangdog and hipped a-thinking there's not much in this world
for an old fellow to live for when he's lost his child, I am pretty well
content. It would only undo me. If you had a child--your own flesh and
blood--part of your life--a child that had been to you what my sweet
Moll hath been to me, you would comprehend better how I feel. To pretend
indifference when you're longing to hug her to your heart, to talk of
fair weather and foul when you're thinking of old times, and then to bow
and scrape and go away without a single desire of your aching heart
satisfied,--'tis more than a man with a spark of warmth in his soul can
bear." And then he proceeded to give a dozen other reasons for declining
the tempting bait,--the sum of all proving to my conviction that he was
dying to see Moll, and I feared he would soon be doing by stealth that
which it were much safer he should do openly.

About a week after this I got a letter from him, asking me to come again
as soon as I might, he having c