Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 11).djvu/256

 *fected and poisoned in every fibre with the morals of the higher rascality. And such a friend was mine—and it was he who crushed me.

I can guess whom you mean.

There was not a nook or cranny of my life that I hesitated to lay open to him. And then, when the moment came, he turned against me the weapons I myself had placed in his hands.

I have never been able to understand why he Of course, there were whispers of all sorts at the time.

What were the whispers? Tell me. You see I know nothing. For I had to go straight into—into isolation. What did people whisper, Vilhelm?

You were to have gone into the Cabinet, they said.

I was offered a portfolio, but I refused it.

Then it wasn't there you stood in his way?

Oh, no; that was not the reason he betrayed me.