As soon as I heard them go down stairs, I stole up softly to my own room, out of which I had been luckily not mist. There I began to breathe a little freer, and to give a loose to those warm emotions which the sight of such an encounter had rais'd in me. I laid me down on the bed stretch'd myself out, joining, and ardently wishing, and requiring any means to divert or allay the rekindl'd rage and tumult of my desires, which all pointed strongly to their pole, man. I felt about the bed, as if I sought for something that I grasp'd in my waking dream, and not finding it, could have cried for vexation, every part of me glowing with stimulating fires. At length, I resorted to the only present remedy, that of vain attempts at digitation, where the smallness of the theater did not yet afford room enough for action, and where the pain my fingers gave me, in striving for admission, though they procur'd me a slight satisfaction for the present, started an apprehension, which I could not
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