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It seemed as though even her soul had turned to stone, and, with the White Moll's clothes in her hands, she stood there staring at the doorway, and something that was greater than fear, because it mingled horror, ugly and forbidding, fell upon her. It was still just light enough to see. The shadow moved forward and came inside.

"Somebody pinched a million from de old guy!" He shifted his cigarette with a deft movement of his tongue from one side of his mouth to the other, and grinned again. "Can youse beat it! Accordin' to him, he had enough coin to annex de whole of Noo Yoik! De moll's his wife. He went out to hell-an'-gone somewhere for a few years huntin' gold while de old girl starved.

For, assuredly, Simon hath not been idle these past days, and will do us an ill turn if he can, by throwing doubts before these same tenants whether they should pay or not before Moll's succession is made sure.

Just tells you how it all happened an' then asks you whether you'd be such a skunk as to even think of convictin' the girl for what she did. The judge says it's all right, far as he's concerned. We'd have it to-day, only Moll's got to have a new dress an' bonnet an' such-like before she can appear in court. All you'll have to do, Kenny, is jest to set back, look wise an' let her tell her story.

I put this sum in the purse and went out into the hall where Dario was waiting, with his basket of brushes beside him. In a poor, bungling, stammering fashion, I delivered Moll's message, and made the best excuse I could for delivering it in her stead. He waited a moment or two after I had spoken, and then, says he, in a low voice: "Is that all?"

Lord bless you, young man, my poor wife, in the hands of Grey Moll, was nothing better than a pigeon in the claws of a buzzard hawk, or I in the hands of the Flaming Tinman, which when I saw, my heart was fit to burst, and I determined to give up everything everything to save my poor wife out of Grey Moll's claws. 'Hold! I shouted. 'Hold, both of you Jack, Moll.

The hag was muttering her incantations and did not heed the girl. "The rope air a long 'un and a stout 'un," Ma Moll's voice had raised to a shrill cry as she described the instrument of death. Tessibel's head was now close to the hag's. Her wild terror-stricken eyes following the stick as it stirred the contents of the pot.

"Ye air to sleep many a day in it," she said aloud, "for yer legs ain't as big as a rabbit's, and yer face ain't any beautifuller than Ma Moll's.... But ye air a livin' and that air somethin'." Hardly had she got the words from her lips and fitted the cover securely before the door opened, and Ezra Longman stepped into the hut.

"You're right, Bradshaw. It's the best way. I ought to have done it at first. But, hang the girl, she'll weary me to death with her sermons and crying fits. Moll's worth two of her for that, matter she scolds, but at least she never would look like a stuck fawn when I came home a little queer. For the matter of that, she don't mind a spree herself at times."

The next day comes Simon with a bag of six hundred pounds, which he tells over with infinite care, groaning and mopping his eyes betwixt each four or five pieces with a most rueful visage, so that it seemed he was weeping over this great expenditure, and then he goes to prepare the Court and get servants against Moll's arrival.