MEL. Pray heaven my aunt keep touch with her assignation. O that her lord were but sweating behind this hanging, with the expectation of what I shall see. Hist, she comes. Little does she think what a mine is just ready to spring under her feet. But to my post. [_Goes behind the hangings_.] SCENE XVI. LADY TOUCHWOOD. LADY TOUCH. 'Tis eight o'clock; methinks I should have found him here. Who does not prevent the hour of love, outstays the time; for to be dully punctual is too slow. I was accusing you of neglect. SCENE XVII. LADY TOUCHWOOD, MASKWELL, MELLEFONT _absconding_. MASK. I confess you do reproach me when I see you here before me; but 'tis fit I should be still behindhand, still to be more and more indebted to your goodness. LADY TOUCH. You can excuse a fault too well, not to have been to blame. A ready answer shows you were prepared. MASK. Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression. LADY TOUCH. Not in love: words are the weak support of cold indifference; love has no language to be heard. MASK. Excess of joy has made me stupid! Thus may my lips be ever closed. [_Kisses her_.] And thus--O who would not lose his speech, upon condition to have joys above it? LADY TOUCH. Hold, let me lock the door first. [_Goes to the door_.] MASK. [_Aside_.] That I believed; 'twas well I left the private passage open. LADY TOUCH. So, that's safe. MASK. And so may all your pleasures be, and secret as this kiss-- MEL. And may all treachery be thus discovered. [_Leaps out_.] LADY TOUCH. Ah! [_Shrieks_.] MEL. Villain! [_Offers to draw_.] MASK. Nay, then, there's but one way. [_Runs out_.] SCENE XVIII. 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.