Bernick.
You would have me voluntarily sacrifice my domestic happiness and my position in society!
Lona.
What right have you to stand where you are standing?
Bernick.
For fifteen years I have every day earned a clearer right—by my whole life, by all I have laboured for, by all I have achieved.
Lona.
Yes, you have laboured for much and achieved much, both for yourself and others. You are the richest and most influential man in the town; they have to bow before your will, all of them, because you are held to be a man without stain or flaw—your home is a model, your life is a model. But all this magnificence, and you yourself along with it, stand on a trembling quicksand. A moment may come, a word may be spoken—and, if you do not save yourself in time, you and all your grandeur go to the bottom.
Bernick.
Lona—what did you come here to do?