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 apace with Inger Gyldenlöve'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 yonder 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 shall 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 laugh of desperation.] Well met again, Inger Gyldenlöve!
