Why this, that I often feel ready to sink under this terrible burden of debt—
Debt, do you say? But you owe no one anything, Halvard!
[Softly, with emotion.] I owe a boundless debt to you—to you—to you, Aline.
[Rises slowly.] What is behind all this? You may just as well tell me at once.
But there is nothing behind it! I have never done you any wrong—not wittingly and willfully, at any rate. And yet—and yet it seems as though a crushing debt rested upon me and weighed me down.
A debt to me?
Chiefly to you.
Then you are—ill after all, Halvard.
[Gloomily.] I suppose I must be—or not far from it. [Looks towards the door to the right, which is opened at this moment.] Ah! now it grows light.
HILDA WANGEL comes in. She has made some alteration in her
dress, and let down her skirt.