Berent (sitting down beside him, after a moment's pause). Wouldn't you
like to feel your conscience clear again--to be able really to live with
your wife and children? Because I am sure you have not done that for
many a day.

Tjaelde (as before). Oh!

Berent. I have known many speculators in my time and have received
many confessions. So I know what you have been robbed of for three
years--never a good night's rest, never a meal eaten with a light heart.
You have scarcely been conscious of what your children were doing or
saying, except when accident brought you together. And your wife--

Tjaelde. My wife!

Berent. Yes, she has slaved hard enough to prepare these banquets that
were to conceal the nakedness of the land. Indeed, she has been the
hardest worked servant in your house.

Tjaelde. My patient, good wife!

Berent. I feel certain you would rather be the humblest labourer earning
your daily bread than live through such suffering again.

Tjaelde. A thousand times rather!

Berent. Then can you hesitate to do what will give every man his due,
and bring you back to truthfulness again? Take the paper and sign it!

Tjaelde (falling on his knees). Mercy, mercy! You do not know what you
are asking me. My own children will curse me. I have just heard of a
child doing that to her father! And my business friends, who will be
ruined with me--numbers of them--think of their families! Oh! What is to
become of my work-people? Do you know there are more than four
hundred of them? Think of them and their families, robbed of their
livelihood!--Be merciful! I cannot, I dare not, do it! Save me, help me!
It was horrible of me to try and threaten you; but now I implore you,
for the sake of all those that deserve more than I, but to whom I shall
devote the rest of my life in loyal work!

Berent. I cannot save you, least of all with money that belongs to
others. What you ask me to do would be disloyalty to them.

Tjaelde. No, no! Publish my accounts openly--put me under trustees, if
you like; but let me go on with the scheme that I believe will succeed!
Every clear-headed man will see that it must succeed!

Berent. Come and sit down. Let us discuss it. (TJAELDE sits down.) Isn't
what you are now proposing exactly what you have been trying to do for
the last three years? You _have_ been able to borrow the means; but what
good has it done?

Tjaelde. Times have been so bad!

Berent (shaking his head). You have mixed up fal