Kabanata Kabanata 18 · LADY TOUCHWOOD, MELLEFONT.

MEL. Say you so, were you provided for an escape? Hold, madam, you have

no more holes to your burrow; I'll stand between you and this sally-port.

LADY TOUCH. Thunder strike thee dead for this deceit, immediate

lightning blast thee, me, and the whole world! Oh! I could rack myself,

play the vulture to my own heart, and gnaw it piecemeal, for not boding

to me this misfortune.

MEL. Be patient.

LADY TOUCH. Be damned.

MEL. Consider, I have you on the hook; you will but flounder yourself a-

weary, and be nevertheless my prisoner.

LADY TOUCH. I'll hold my breath and die, but I'll be free.

MEL. O madam, have a care of dying unprepared, I doubt you have some

unrepented sins that may hang heavy, and retard your flight.

LADY TOUCH. O! what shall I do? say? Whither shall I turn? Has hell no

remedy?

MEL. None; hell has served you even as heaven has done, left you to

yourself.--You're in a kind of Erasmus paradise, yet if you please you

may make it a purgatory; and with a little penance and my absolution all

this may turn to good account.

LADY TOUCH. [_Aside_.] Hold in my passion, and fall, fall a little,

thou swelling heart; let me have some intermission of this rage, and one

minute's coolness to dissemble. [_She weeps_.]

MEL. You have been to blame. I like those tears, and hope they are of

the purest kind,--penitential tears.

LADY TOUCH. O the scene was shifted quick before me,--I had not time to

think. I was surprised to see a monster in the glass, and now I find

'tis myself; can you have mercy to forgive the faults I have imagined,

but never put in practice?--O consider, consider how fatal you have been

to me, you have already killed the quiet of this life. The love of you

was the first wandering fire that e'er misled my steps, and while I had

only that in view, I was betrayed into unthought of ways of ruin.

MEL. May I believe this true?

LADY TOUCH. O be not cruelly incredulous.--How can you doubt these

streaming eyes? Keep the severest eye o'er all my future conduct, and if

I once relapse, let me not hope forgiveness; 'twill ever be in your power

to ruin me. My lord shall sign to your desires; I will myself create

your happiness, and Cynthia shall be this night your bride. Do but

conceal my failings, and forgive.

MEL. Upon such terms I will be ever yours in every honest way.

SCENE 19.