Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/129



I hear you, Sir Knight.

I know you hate me.

You are keen-sighted, I perceive.

But I know, too, that I have fully merited your hate. Unseemly and wounding were the words I wrote of you in my letter to Lady Inger.

Like enough; I have not read them.

But at least their purport is not unknown to you; I know your mother has not left you in ignorance of the matter; at the least she has told you how I praised the lot of the man who—; surely you know the hope I nursed—

Sir Knight—if 'tis of that you would speak—

I speak of it, only to ask pardon for my words; for no other reason, I swear to you. If my fame—as I have too much cause to fear—has gone before me to Östråt, you must needs know enough of my life not to wonder that in