Lövborg.

Yes, I tell you! Tore it into a thousand pieces—and scattered them on the fiord—far out. There there is cool sea-water at any rate—let them drift upon it—drift with the current and the wind. And then presently they will sink—deeper and deeper—as I shall, Thea.

Mrs. Elvsted.

Do you know, Lövborg, that what you have done with the book—I shall think of it to my dying day as though you had killed a little child.

Lövborg.

Yes, you are right. It is a sort of child-murder.

Mrs. Elvsted.

How could you, then——! Did not the child belong to me too?

Hedda.

[Almost inaudibly.] Ah, the child——