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 darest."
