“For all the world my case!” cries he, slapping the table.  “If I could only have five minutes in secret with the dear girl, I would give her a hint that should make her profit by my folly.”  And then he tells me how, in the heyday of courtship and the flush of confiding love, he did confess to his wife that he had carried gallantry somewhat too far with Sukey Taylor, and might have added a good half dozen other names beside hers but for her sudden outcry; and how, though she might very well have suspected other amours, she did never reproach him therewith, but was for ever to her dying day a-flinging Sukey Taylor in his teeth, etc.

“Lord, Kit!” cries he, in conclusion; “what would I give to save her from such torment!  You know how obedient she is to my guiding, for I have ever studied to make her respect me; and no one in the world hath such empire over her.  Could it not be contrived anyhow that we should meet for half an hour secretly?”

“Not secretly,” says I.  “But there is no reason why you should not visit her openly.  Nay, it will create less surprise than if you stay away.  For what could be more natural than your coming to the Court on your return from a voyage to see the lady you risked so much to save?”

“Now God bless you for a good, true friend!” cries he, clasping my hand.  “I’ll come, but to stay no great length.  Not a drop will I touch that day, and a fool indeed I must be if I can’t act my part without bungling for a few hours at a stretch, and I a-listening every night in the parlour of the ‘Spotted Dog’ to old seamen swearing and singing their songs.  And I’ll find an opportunity to give—­Moll a hint of my past folly, and so rescue her from a like pitfall.  I’ll abide by your advice, Kit,—­which is the wisest I ever heard from your lips.”

But I was not so sure of this, and, remembering the kind of obedience Moll had used to yield to her father’s commands, my mind misgave me.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Don Sanchez proposes a very artful way to make Mr. Godwin a party to our knavery, etc.

I returned to Hurst Court the following day in the forenoon, and there I found Mr. Godwin, with Moll clinging to his arm, in an upper room commanding a view of the northern slopes, discussing their future, and Moll told me with glee how this room was to be her husband’s workroom, where he would paint pictures for the admiration of all the world, saying that he would not (nor would she have him) renounce his calling to lead the idle life of a country gentleman.

“If the world admire my pictures, the world shall pay to have them,” says he, with a smile; then turning to her he adds very tenderly:  “I will owe all my happiness to you, sweetheart; yet guard my independence in more material matters.  No mercenary question shall ever cast suspicion on my love.”