Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/297



[Smiling.] Come you to tell me that you dare no longer let me go free.

Dare! Be at your ease as to that. Knut Gesling dares whatever he will. No, 'tis another matter. You know that here in the district, I am held to be a wild, unruly companion—

Aye, and if rumour lies not—

Why no, much that it reports may be true enough. But now, I must tell you—

[To, as they come forward beside the house.] I understand you not. You speak as though an unlooked-for happiness had befallen you. What is in your mind?

Signë—you are still a child; you know not what it means to have ever in your heart the dread of—[Suddenly breaking off.] Think, Signë, what it must be to wither and die without ever having lived.