Then she leapt up:
“Your wish was never mine ... never! You have been able to persuade me and frighten me and force me.... I never meant it, Cordt, never ... even when I agreed.”
“Let the dead days be, Adelheid.”
“And now ... Cordt.... Now I am farther away from you ... now you understand me less than ever ... there is something in me now that is a thousand times stronger than what parted us then.”
Cordt looked at her with a tempest in his strong eyes:
“So there is in me, Adelheid.”
He stood before her, drawn up to his full height. She thought he seemed taller than usual and his face looked strangely young.
“There is Finn,” he said.
Fru Adelheid sat in her chair, because she could not stand.
“You speak as if he were your son and not mine,” she said.