Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/87



You? What will you do?

I will go my way, even as you go yours. What I shall do I myself know not; but I feel within me the strength to dare all for our righteous cause.

Then have you a hard fight before you. I once promised as you do now—and my hair has grown grey under the burden of that promise.

Good-night! Your guest will soon be here, and at that meeting I should be one too many.

It may be there is yet time for you; well, God strengthen and guide you on your path! Forget not that the eyes of many thousands are fixed on you. Think on Merete, weeping late and early over her wasted life. Think on Lucia, sleeping in her black coffin.

And one thing more. Forget not that in the game you play this night, your stake is your last child.

[Looks after her awhile.] My last child? You know not how true was that wordBut the stake is not my child only. God help me, I am playing to-night for the whole of Norway's land.