JUDITH. [_Earnestly_] What are you doing here?
JUDITH. [_Dumfounded_] To Norrland? When are you going?
JUDITH. That's what I thought! [_Walks up and down the floor, stamping her feet_] I wish you had stayed over to-day.
JUDITH. What do you know about the Colonel?--Is it certain that you are going?
ALLAN. There is no other choice. And now I want it myself. [_Silence_.
ALLAN. I want to get away from here--out into the world!
JUDITH. It's too close here? Yes, Allan, I understand you--it's unbearable here--here, where they speculate--in soda and human beings! [Silence.
JUDITH. [_With genuine emotion_] As you know, Allan, I possess that fortunate nature which cannot suffer--but--now I am learning!
JUDITH. Yes--now it's beginning! [_She presses both hands to her breast_] Oh, how it hurts--oh!
JUDITH. I don't know--I choke--I think I'm going to die!
JUDITH. [_Crying out_] Oh! Is this the way it feels? Is this the way--poor boys!
ALLAN. I should smile, if I were as cruel as you are.
JUDITH. I am not cruel, but I didn't know better--You must not go!
JUDITH. [_With all the seriousness of deepest suffering_] You!--No, I can never live through this! [_Cries out, pressing her breast with both hands_] I suffer, I suffer--What have you done to me? I don't want to live any longer! Allan, don't go--not alone! Let us go together--we'll take the small boat, the little white one--and we'll sail far out, with the main sheet made fast--the wind is high--and we sail till we founder out there, way out, where there is no eelgrass and no jelly-fish--What do you say?--But we should have washed the sails yesterday--they should be white as snow--for I want to see white in that moment--and you swim with your arm about me until you grow tired--and then we sink--[_Turning around_] There would be style in that, a good deal more style than in going about here lamenting and smuggling letters that will be opened and jeered at by father--Allan! [_She takes hold of both his arms and shakes him_] Do you hear?
ALLAN. [_Who has been watching her with shining eyes_] Judith! Judith! Why were you not like this before?
JUDITH. I didn't know--how could I tell what I didn't know?
ALLAN. And now I must go away from you! But I suppose it is the better, the only thing! I cannot compete with a man--like----