Manders.

What do you mean by that?

Mrs. Alving.

[Drumming on the window-frame.] I ought never to have concealed the facts of Alving’s life. But at that time I dared not do anything else—I was afraid, partly on my own account. I was such a coward.

Manders.

A coward?

Mrs. Alving.

If people had come to know anything, they would have said—“Poor man! with a runaway wife, no wonder he kicks over the traces.”

Manders.

Such remarks might have been made with a certain show of right.