They had been looking into each other’s eyes with the delight of reading there the love that filled their hearts, but now Moll bent her head as if she could no longer bear that searching regard, and unable to make response to his pretty speech, sat twining her fingers in her lap, silent, with pain and pleasure fluttering over her downcast face.  And at this time I do think she was as near as may be on the point of confessing she had been no Barbary slave, rather than deceive the man who loved her, and profit by his faith in her, which had certainly undone us all; but in her passion, a woman considered the welfare of her father and best friends very lightly; nay, she will not value her own body and soul at two straws, but is ready to yield up everything for one dear smile.

A full minute Mr. Godwin sat gazing at Moll’s pretty, blushing, half-hid face (as if for his last solace), and then, rising slowly from the little parapet, he says: 

“Had I been more generous, I should have spared you this long morning ride.  So you have something to forgive, and we may cry quits!” Then, stretching forth his hand, he adds, “Farewell.”

“Stay,” cries Moll, springing to her feet, as fearing to lose him suddenly again, “I have not eased myself of the burden that lay uppermost.  Oh!” cries she, passionately, casting off all reserve, “I know all; who you are, and why you first came hither, and I am here to offer you the half of all I have.”

“Half, sweet cousin?” answers he, taking her two hands in his.

“Aye; for if I had not come to claim it, all would have been yours by right.  And ’tis no more than fair that, owing so much to Fortune, I should offer you the half.”

“Suppose that half will not suffice me, dear?” says he.

“Why, then I’ll give you all,” answers she; “houses, gardens, everything.”

“Then what will you do, coz?”

“Go hence, as you were going but just now,” answers she, trembling.

“Why, that’s as if you took the diamond from its setting, and left me nothing but the foil,” says he.  “Oh, I would order it another way:  give me the gem, and let who will take what remains.  Unless these little hands are mine to hold for ever, I will take nothing from them.”

“They are thine, dear love,” cries she, in a transport, flinging them about his neck, “and my heart as well.”

At this conjuncture I thought it advisable to steal softly away to the bend of the road; for surely any one coming this way by accident, and finding them locked together thus in tender embrace on the king’s highway, would have fallen to some gross conclusion, not understanding their circumstances, and so might have offended their delicacy by some rude jest.  And I had not parted myself here a couple of minutes, ere I spied a team of four stout horses coming over the brow of the hill, drawing the stage waggon behind them which plies betwixt Sevenoaks and London.  This prompting me to a happy notion, I returned to the happy, smiling pair, who were now seated again upon the bridge, hand in hand, and says I: