Robert!

FORESTER (_almost simultaneously_).

Shoot me!

STEIN (_has seized the gun_).

You murderer!

[_The_ PASTOR _arrests his arm_.]

ANDREW.

You shot Robert, father? Robert lives!

STEIN.

He lives?

PASTOR.

He lives?

FORESTER.

He lives?

ANDREW.

He lives, as surely as I live!

FORESTER.

It was only a dream? Can it be that I am not a murderer? That I am an honorable man?

PASTOR.

That you are, Ulrich. Drive away that unfortunate delusion.

STEIN.

Man alive, to what might you have provoked me!

[_Puts away the gun_.]

FORESTER.

You saw him? When did you see him, Andrew? Now, Andrew? Just now, Andrew?

ANDREW.

Just now, as I was coming home, I met two men from the mill with a stretcher. Robert had just called them out of their beds; they were going to the Dell; Robert had gone ahead of them.

FORESTER.

To the Dell?

PASTOR.

With a stretcher?

STEIN.

What can be behind all this?

FORESTER (_has gone to the door of_ MARY'S _room; releases the latch_).

Thanks be to G.o.d!

[_Listening_.]

I hear her breathing. Oh, she sleeps a peaceful sleep. I am oppressed with a world of cares, and she takes them from my heart with her breath.

Do you hear, Pastor, do you hear?

STEIN.

The unfortunate man! His delusion is returning.

PASTOR (_after an anxious pause, during which the_ FORESTER _has not taken his eyes from the_ PASTOR'S _face_).

I hear nothing. That is your own heavy breathing that you hear.

FORESTER (_begins to collapse again_).

My own heavy breathing that I hear--

[_Summons up courage, opens the door_.]

My eyes deceive me? Where she is not, there I see her; and where she is, there I do not see her. Pastor, for G.o.d's sake, tell me: "There lives Mary."

[_He has convulsively clutched the_ PASTOR'S _arm_.]

PASTOR.

I do not see her. The bed there is untouched, the windows open--your wife--

FORESTER (_rushes into the room_).

Woman! Woman! Poor, poor woman!