Johan: Hurrah, Lona, she is going with us!

Mrs. Bernick: But, Johan--are you out of your senses?

Rorlund: Can I believe my ears! Such an atrocious scandal! By what arts of seduction have you--?

Johan: Come, come, sir--what are you saying?

Rorlund: Answer me, Dina; do you mean to do this--entirely of your own free will?

Dina: I must get away from here.

Rorlund: But with him!--with him!

Dina: Can you tell me of any one else here who would have the courage to take me with him?

Rorlund: Very well, then--you shall learn who he is.

Johan: Do not speak!

Bernick: Not a word more!

Rorlund: If I did not, I should be unworthy to serve a community of whose morals I have been appointed a guardian, and should be acting most unjustifiably towards this young girl, in whose upbringing I have taken a material part, and who is to me--

Johan: Take care what you are doing!

Rorlund: She shall know! Dina, this is the man who was the cause of all your mother's misery and shame.

Bernick: Mr. Rorlund--?

Dina: He! (TO JOHAN.) Is this true?

Johan: Karsten, you answer.

Bernick: Not a word more! Do not let us say another word about it today.

Dina: Then it is true.

Rorlund: Yes, it is true. And more than that, this fellow--whom you were going to trust--did not run away from home empty-handed; ask him about old Mrs. Bernick's cash-box.... Mr. Bernick can bear witness to that!

Lona: Liar

Bernick: Ah!

Mrs. Bernick: My God! my God!

Johan (rushing at RORLUND with uplifted arm): And you dare to--

Lona (restraining him): Do not strike him, Johan!

Rorlund: That is right, assault me! But the truth will out; and it is the truth--Mr. Bernick has admitted it--and the whole town knows it.

Now, Dina, you know him. (A short silence.)

Johan (softly, grasping BERNICK by the arm): Karsten, Karsten, what have you done?

Mrs. Bernick (in tears): Oh, Karsten, to think that I should have mixed you up in all this disgrace!

Sandstad (coming in hurriedly from the right, and calling out, with his hand still on the door-handle): You positively must come now, Mr.

Bernick. The fate of the whole railway is hanging by a thread.

Bernick (abstractedly): What is it? What have I to--

Lona (earnestly and with emphasis): You have to go and be a pillar of society, brother-in-law.

Sandstad: Yes, come along; we need the full weight of your moral excellence on our side.

Johan (aside, to BERNICK): Karsten, we will have a talk about this tomorrow. (Goes out through the garden. BERNICK, looking half dazed, goes out to the right with SANDSTAD.)

ACT III

(SCENE--The same room. BERNICK, with a cane in his hand and evidently in a great rage, comes out of the farther room on the left, leaving the door half-open behind him.)

Bernick (speaking to his wife, who is in the other room): There! I have given it him in earnest now; I don't think he will forget that thrashing! What do you say?--And I say that you are an injudicious mother! You make excuses for him, and countenance any sort of rascality on his part--Not rascality? What do you call it, then? Slipping out of the house at night, going out in a fishing boat, staying away till well on in the day, and giving me such a horrible fright when I have so much to worry me! And then the young scamp has the audacity to threaten that he will run away! Just let him try it!--You? No, very likely; you don't trouble yourself much about what happens to him. I really believe that if he were to get killed--! Oh, really? Well, I have work to leave behind me in the world; I have no fancy for being left childless--Now, do not raise objections, Betty; it shall be as I say--he is confined to the house. (Listens.) Hush; do not let any one notice anything. (KRAP comes in from the right.)

Krap: Can you spare me a moment, Mr. Bernick?

Bernick (throwing away the cane): Certainly, certainly. Have you come from the yard?

Krap: Yes. Ahem--!

Bernick: Well? Nothing wrong with the "Palm Tree," I hope?

Krap: The "Palm Tree" can sail tomorrow, but

Bernick: It is the "Indian Girl," then? I had a suspicion that that obstinate fellow--

Krap: The "Indian Girl" can sail tomorrow, too; but I am sure she will not get very far.

Bernick: What do you mean?

Krap: Excuse me, sir; that door is standing ajar, and I think there is some one in the other room--

Bernick (shutting the door): There, then! But what is this that no one else must hear?

Krap: Just this--that I believe Aune intends to let the "Indian Girl"

go to the bottom with every mother's son on board.