You mustn’t ask that till you are a big girl—quite grown-up.

Hedvig.

[Sobs.] But I can’t go on being as miserable as this till I'm grown-up.—I think I know what it is.—Perhaps I'm not really father’s child.

Gregers.

[Uneasily.] How could that be?

Hedvig.

Mother might have found me. And perhaps father has just got to know it; I've read of such things.

Gregers.

Well, but if it were so——

Hedvig.