, have brought her
continually into contact with the district physician.

Rebecca. You are quite right.

Kroll. And then he takes you to live with him, immediately upon your
mother's death. He treats you harshly, and yet you stay with him. You
know that he will not leave you a single penny--as a matter of fact you
only got a box of books--and yet you endure living with him, put up
with his behaviour, and nurse him to the end.

Rebecca (comes to the table and looks at him scornfully). And my doing
all that makes it clear to you that there was something
immoral--something criminal about my birth!

Kroll. What you did for him, I attributed to an unconscious filial
instinct. And, as far as the rest of it goes, I consider that the whole
of your conduct has been the outcome of your origin.

Rebecca (hotly). But there is not a single word of truth in what you
say! And I can prove it! Dr. West had not come to Finmark when I was
born.

Kroll. Excuse me, Miss West. He went there a year before you were born.
I have ascertained that.

Rebecca. You are mistaken, I tell you! You are absolutely mistaken!

Kroll. You said here, the day before yesterday, that you were
twenty-nine--going on for thirty.

Rebecca. Really? Did I say that?

Kroll. Yes, you did. And from that I can calculate--

Rebecca. Stop! That will not help you to calculate. For, I may as well
tell you at once, I am a year older than I give myself out to be.

Kroll (smiling incredulously). Really? That is something new. How is
that?

Rebecca. When I had passed my twenty-fifth birthday, I thought I was
getting altogether too old for an unmarried girl, so I resolved to tell
a lie and take a year off my age.

Kroll. You--an emancipated woman--cherishing prejudices as to the
marriageable age!

Rebecca. I know it was a silly thing to do--and ridiculous, too. But
every one has some prejudice or another that they cannot get quite rid
of. We are like that.

Kroll. Maybe. But my calculation may be quite correct, all the same;
because Dr. West was up in Finmark for a flying visit the year before
he was appointed.

Rebecca (impetuously). That is not true

Kroll. Isn't it?

Rebecca. No. My mother never mentioned it.

Kroll. Didn't she, really!

Rebecca. No, never. Nor Dr. West, either. Never a word of it.

Kroll. Might that not be because they both had good reason to jump over
a year?--@just as you have done yourself, Miss West? Perhaps it is a
family f