-is Miss West downstairs?

Mrs. Helseth (from below). No, sir, she is not here.

(The curtain at the end of the room is drawn back, disclosing REBECCA
standing in the doorway.)

Rebecca. John!

Rosmer (turning round). What! Were you in there, in my bedroom! My
dear, what were you doing there?

Rebecca (going up to him). I have been listening.

Rosmer. Rebecca! Could you do a thing like that?

Rebecca. Indeed I could. It was so horrid the way he said that--about
my morning wrapper.

Rosmer. Ah, so you were in there too when Kroll--?

Rebecca. Yes. I wanted to know what was at the bottom of his mind.

Rosmer. You know I would have told you.

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). Oh, don't talk about Beata! Don't think about
Beata any more! She is dead, and you seemed at last to have been able
to get away from the thought of her.

Rosmer. Since I have learnt of this, it seems just as if she had come
to life again in some uncanny fashion.

Rebecca. Oh no--you must not say that, John! You must not!

Rosmer. I tell you it is so.