“Patiently, till the tale was told; then, taking your steward by the throat with sudden passion, he cries:  ’Why should I not strangle you, rascal?  ’Twould be a service to humanity.  What have I done to deserve your love, or this lady your hate?  Nothing.  You would pit us one against the other merely to keep your hold upon these lands, and gratify your insensate love of possession.  Go, get you gone, beast!’ cries he, flinging him off; ’’tis punishment enough for you to live and know you’ve failed.  For, had you proved your case to my conviction, I’d not stir a hand against this lady, be she who she may.  Nay,’ adds he, with greater fury, ’I will not stay where my loyalty and better judgment may be affected by the contagion of a vile suspicion.  Away while you may; my fingers itch to be revenged on you for sundering me from one who should have been my closest, dearest friend.’”

Moll claps her hands together with a cry of joy and pain mingled, even as the smile played upon her lips whilst tears filled her eyes.

“Sunday!” cries she, turning to me and dashing the tears that blinded her from her eyes; “Sunday, and it ‘twas o’ Monday he refused to stay.  O, the brave heart!” Then, in impetuous haste, “He shall be found—­we must overtake him.”

“That may be done if you take horse,” says Anne Fitch, “for he travels afoot.”

“But which way shall we turn?”

“The way that any man would take, seeking to dispel a useless sorrow,” answers the wise woman; “the way to London.”

“God bless you!” cries Moll, clasping the withered old woman to her heaving breast and kissing her.  Then the next moment she would be gone, bidding me get horses for our pursuit.

So, as quickly as I might, I procured a couple of nags, and we set out, leaving a message for Don Sanchez, who was not yet astir.  And we should have gone empty, but that while the horses were a-preparing (and Moll, despite her mighty haste at this business too), I took the precaution to put some store of victuals in a saddle bag.

Reckoning that Mr. Godwin (as I must henceforth call him) had been set out two hours or thereabouts, I considered that we might overtake him in about three at an easy amble.  But Moll was in no mood for ambling, and no sooner were we started than she put her nag to a gallop and kept up this reckless pace up hill and down dale,—­I trailing behind and expecting every minute to be cast and get my neck broke,—­until her horse was spent and would answer no more to the whip.  Then I begged her for mercy’s sake to take the hill we were coming to at a walk, and break her fast.  “For,” says I, “another such half-hour as the last on an empty stomach will do my business, and you will have another dead man to bring back to life, which will advance your journey nothing, and so more haste, less speed.”  Therewith I opened my saddle bag, and sharing its contents, we ate a rare good meal and very merry, and indeed it was a pleasure