LADY INGER. Hush! We have played into each other's hands. What
wiles did you use, my subtle daughter? I saw the love shine out of
his eyes. Hold him fast now! Draw the net closer and closer about
him, and then---- Ah, Elina, if we could but rend his perjured
heart within his breast!
ELINA. Woe is me--what is it you say?
LADY INGER. Let not your courage fail you. Hearken to me. I
know a word that will keep you firm. Know then---- (Listening.)
They are fighting outside the gate. Courage! Now comes the pinch!
(Turns again to ELINA.) Know then, Nils Lykke was the man that
brought your sister to her grave.
ELINA (with a shriek). Lucia!
LADY INGER. He it was, as truly as there is an Avenger above us!
ELINA. Then Heaven be with me!
LADY INGER (appalled). Elina----?!
ELINA. I am his bride in the sight of God.
LADY INGER. Unhappy child,--what have you done?
ELINA (in a toneless voice). Made shipwreck of my soul.--Good-
night, my mother!
(She goes out to the left.)
LADY INGER. Ha-ha-ha! It goes down-hill now with Inger
Gyldenlove's house. There went the last of my daughters.
Why could I not keep silence? Had she known nought, it may be
she had been happy--after a kind.
It _was_ to be so. It is written up there in the stars that I
am to break off one green branch after another, till the trunk
stand leafless at last.
'Tis well, 'tis well! I am to have my son again. Of the others,
of my daughters, I will not think.
My reckoning? To face my reckoning?--It falls not due till the
last great day of wrath.--_That_ comes not yet awhile.
NILS STENSSON (calling from outside on the right). Ho--shut
the gate!
LADY INGER. Count Sture's voice----!
NILS STENSSON (rushes in, unarmed, and with his clothes torn, and
shouts with a desperate laugh). Well met again, Inger Gyldenlove!
LADY INGER. What have you lost?
NILS STENSSON. My kingdom and my life!
LADY INGER. And the peasants? My servants?--where are they?
NILS STENSSON. You will find the carcasses along the highway.
Who has the rest, I know not.
OLAF SKAKTAVL (outside on the right). Count Sture! Where
are you?
NILS STENSSON. Here, here!
(OLAF SKAKTAVL comes in with his right hand wrapped in a cloth).
LADY INGER. Alas Olaf Skaktavl, you too----!
OLAF SKAKTAVL. It was impossible to break through.
LADY INGER. You are wounded, I see!
OLAF SKAKTAVL. A finger the less; that is all.
NILS STENSSON. Where are the Swedes?