Mrs. Helseth. Miss West!

Rebecca. Presently, presently. Not now.

Mrs. Helseth. Just a word, miss! (REBECCA goes to the door. MRS.

HELSETH tells her something, and they whisper together for a moment; then MRS. HELSETH nods and goes away.)

Rosmer (uneasily). Was it anything for me?

Rebecca. No, only something about the housekeeping. You ought to go out into the open air now, John dear. You should go for a good long walk.

Rosmer (taking up his hat). Yes, come along; we will go together.

Rebecca. No, dear, I can't just now. You must go by yourself. But shake off all these gloomy thoughts--promise me that!

Rosmer. I shall never be able to shake them quite off, I am afraid.

Rebecca. Oh, but how can you let such groundless fancies take such a hold on you!

Rosmer. Unfortunately they are not so groundless as you think, dear. I have lain, thinking them over, all night. Perhaps Beata saw things truly after all.

Rebecca. In what way do you mean?

Rosmer. Saw things truly when she believed I loved you, Rebecca.

Rebecca. Truly in THAT respect?

Rosmer (laying his hat down on the table). This is the question I have been wrestling with--whether we two have deluded ourselves the whole time, when we have been calling the tie between us merely friendship.

Rebecca. Do you mean, then, that the right name for it would have been--?

Rosmer. Love. Yes, dear, that is what I mean. Even while Beata was alive, it was you that I gave all my thoughts to. It was you alone I yearned for. It was with you that I experienced peaceful, joyful, pa.s.sionless happiness. When we consider it rightly, Rebecca, our life together began like the sweet, mysterious love of two children for one another--free from desire or any thought of anything more. Did you not feel it in that way too? Tell me.

Rebecca (struggling with herself). Oh, I do not know what to answer.

Rosmer. And it was this life of intimacy, with one another and for one another, that we took to be friendship. No, dear--the tie between us has been a spiritual marriage--perhaps from the very first day. That is why I am guilty. I had no right to it--no right to it for Beata's sake.

Rebecca. No right to a happy life? Do you believe that, John?

Rosmer. She looked at the relations between us through the eyes of HER love--judged them after the nature of HER love. And it was only natural. She could not have judged them otherwise than she did.

Rebecca. But how can you so accuse yourself for Beata's delusions?

Rosmer. It was for love of me--in her own way that--she threw herself into the mill-race. That fact is certain, Rebecca. I can never get beyond that.

Rebecca. Oh, do not think of anything else but the great, splendid task that you are going to devote your life to!

Rosmer (shaking his head). It can never be carried through. Not by me.

Not after what I know now.

Rebecca. Why not by you?

Rosmer. Because no cause can ever triumph which has its beginnings in guilt.

Rebecca (impetuously). Oh, these are nothing but prejudices you have inherited--these doubts, these fears, these scruples! You have a legend here that your dead return to haunt you in the form of white horses.

This seems to me to be something of that sort.

Rosmer. Be that as it may, what difference does it make if I cannot shake it off? Believe me, Rebecca, it is as I say--any cause which is to win a lasting victory must be championed by a man who is joyous and innocent.

Rebecca. But is joy so absolutely indispensable to you, John?

Rosmer. Joy? Yes, indeed it is.

Rebecca. To you, who never laugh?

Rosmer. Yes, in spite of that. Believe me, I have a great capacity for joy.

Rebecca. Now you really must go out, dear--for a long walk--a really long one, do you hear? There is your hat, and there is your stick.

Rosmer (taking them from her). Thank you. And you won't come too?

Rebecca. No, no, I can't come now.

Rosmer. Very well. You are none the less always with me now. (Goes out by the entrance hall. After a moment REBECCA peeps out from behind the door which he has left open. Then she goes to the door on the right, which she opens.)

Rebecca (in a whisper). Now, Mrs. Helseth. You can let him come in now.

(Crosses to the window. A moment later, KROLL comes in from the right.

He bows to her silently and formally and keeps his hat in his hand.)

Kroll. Has he gone, then?

Rebecca. Yes.

Kroll. Does he generally stay out long?

Rebecca. Yes. But to-day he is in a very uncertain mood--so, if you do not want to meet him--

Kroll. Certainly not. It is you I wish to speak to--and quite alone.

Rebecca. Then we had better make the best of our time. Please sit down.

(She sits down in an easy-chair by the window. KROLL takes a chair beside her.)

Kroll. Miss West, you can scarcely have any idea how deeply pained and unhappy I am over this revolution that has taken place in John Rosmer's ideas.

Rebecca. We were prepared for that being so--at first.

Kroll. Only at first?

Rosmer. Mr. Rosmer hoped confidently that sooner or later you would take your place beside him.