Rebecca. I scarcely think you would have told me everything--
certainly not in his own words.
Rosmer. Did you hear everything, then?
Rebecca. Most of it, I think. I had to go down for a moment when
Mortensgaard came.
Rosmer. And then came up again?
Rebecca. Do not take it ill of me, dear friend.
Rosmer. Do anything that you think right and proper. You have
full freedom of action.--But what do you say to it all, Rebecca?
Ah, I do not think I have ever stood so much in need of you as I
do to-day.
Rebecca. Surely both you and I have been prepared for what would
happen some day.
Rosmer. No, no--not for this.
Rebecca. Not for this?
Rosmer. It is true that I used to think that sooner or later our
beautiful pure friendship would come to be attacked by calumny
and suspicion--not on Kroll's part, for I never would have
believed such a thing of him--but on the part of the coarse-minded
and ignoble-eyed crowd. Yes, indeed; I had good reason enough for
so jealously drawing a veil of concealment over our compact. It
was a dangerous secret.
Rebecca. Why should we pay any heed to what all these other
people think? You and I know that we have nothing to reproach
ourselves with.
Rosmer. I? Nothing to reproach myself with? It is true enough
that I thought so until to-day. But now, now, Rebecca--
Rebecca. Yes? Now?
Rosmer. How am I to account to myself for Beata's horrible
accusation?
Rebecca (impetuously).
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