Bernick: Not a penny, I tell you.
Lona: But those rumours? How did that shameful rumour get about that Johan--
Bernick: Lona, I think I can speak to you as I could to no one else. I will conceal nothing from you. I was partly to blame for spreading the rumour.
Lona: You? You could act in that way towards a man who for your sake--!
Bernick: Do not condemn me without bearing in mind how things stood at that time. I told you about it yesterday. I came home and found my mother involved in a mesh of injudicious undertakings; we had all manner of bad luck--it seemed as if misfortunes were raining upon us, and our house was on the verge of ruin. I was half reckless and half in despair. Lona, I believe it was mainly to deaden my thoughts that I let myself drift into that entanglement that ended in Johan's going away.
Lona: Hm--
Bernick: You can well imagine how every kind of rumour was set on foot after you and he had gone. People began to say that it was not his first piece of folly--that Dorf had received a large sum of money to hold his tongue and go away; other people said that she had received it. At the same time it was obvious that our house was finding it difficult to meet its obligations. What was more natural than that scandal-mongers should find some connection between these two rumours? And as the woman remained here, living in poverty, people declared that he had taken the money with him to America; and every time rumour mentioned the sum, it grew larger.
Lona: And you, Karsten--?
Bernick: I grasped at the rumour like a drowning man at a straw.
Lona: You helped to spread it?