THE STRANGER (stops in the doorway, and says in a low voice).
Hail to you, Inger Gyldenlove!
LADY INGER (turns with a scream). Ah, Christ in heaven save me!
(Falls back into a chair. The STRANGER stands gazing at her, motionless, leaning on his sword.)
ACT SECOND.
(The room at Ostrat, as in the first Act.)
(LADY INGER GYLDENLOVE is seated at the table on the right, by the window. OLAF SKAKTAVL is standing a little way from her. Their faces show that they have been engaged in an animated discussion.)
OLAF SKAKTAVL. For the last time, Inger Gyldenlove—you are not to be moved from your purpose?
LADY INGER. I can do nought else. And my counsel to you is: do as I do. If it be heaven's will that Norway perish utterly, perish it must, for all we may do to save it.
OLAF SKAKTAVL. And think you I can content myself with words like these? Shall I sit and look quietly on, now that the hour is come? Do you forget the reckoning I have to pay? They have robbed me of my lands, and parcelled them out among themselves. My son, my only child, the last of my race, they have slaughtered like a dog. Myself they have outlawed and forced to lurk by forest and fell these twenty years.—Once and again have folk whispered of my death; but this I believe, that they shall not lay me beneath the earth before I have seen my vengeance.
LADY INGER. Then is there a long life before you. What would you do?