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 Moll spying me coming, from her window in the front of the house, met me at the door, in her cloak and hood, and begged I would take her a little turn over the heath.

"What have you to tell me?" asks she, pressing my arm as we walked on.

"I have given your letter to Sir Peter Lely's servant, who promises to deliver it faithfully to your husband."

"Well," says she, after a little pause of silence, "that is not all."

"You will be glad to know that he is well in health," says I, and then I stop again, all hanging in a hedge for not knowing whether it were wiser to speak or hold my tongue.

"There is something else. I see it in your face. Hide nothing from me for love's sake," says she, piteously. Whereupon, my heart getting the better of my head (which, to be sure, was no great achievement), I told all as I have set it down here.

"My dear, dear love! my darling Dick!" says she, in the end. And then she would have it told all over again, with a thousand questions, to draw forth more; and these being exhausted, she asks why I would have concealed so much from her, and if I did fear she would seek him.

"Nay, my dear," says I; "'tis t'other way about. For if your husband does forgive you, and yearns but to take you back into his arms, it would be an unnatural, cruel thing to keep you apart. Therefore, to confess the whole truth, I did meditate going to him and showing how we and not you are to blame in this matter, and then telling him where he might find you, if on reflection he felt that he could honestly hold you guiltless. But ere I do that (as I see now), I must know if you are willing to this accommodation; for if