Wangel. You are determined, then, to speak to him yourself?
Ellida. I must speak to him myself; for it is freely that I must make my choice.
Wangel. You have no choice, Ellida. You have no right to choose—no right without my permission.
Ellida. You can never prevent the choice, neither you nor anyone. You can forbid me to go away with him—to follow him—in case I should choose to do that. You can keep me here by force—against my will. That you can do. But that I should choose, choose from my very soul—choose him, and not you—in case I would and did choose thus—this you cannot prevent.
Wangel. No; you are right. I cannot prevent that.
Ellida. And so I have nothing to help me to resist. Here, at home, there is no single thing that attracts me and binds me. I am so absolutely rootless in your house, Wangel. The children are not mine—their hearts, I mean—never have been. When I go, if I do go, either with him tonight, or to Skjoldviken tomorrow, I haven't a key to give up, an order to give about anything whatsoever. I am absolutely rootless in your house—I have been absolutely outside everything from the very first.
Wangel. You yourself wished it.
Ellida. No, no, I did not. I neither wished nor did not wish it. I simply left things just as I found them the day I came here. It is you, and no one else, who wished it.
Wangel. I thought to do all for the best for you.
Ellida. Yes, Wangel, I know it so well! But there is retribution in that, a something that avenges itself. For now I find no binding power here-nothing to strengthen me—nothing to help me—nothing to draw me towards what should have been the strongest possession of us both.