s gone for me to
dare risk anything whatever. I have lost all power of action, John.

Rosmer. Tell me how that has come about.

Rebecca. It has come about through my living with you.

Rosmer. But how? How?

Rebecca. When I was alone with you here--and you had really found
yourself--

Rosmer. Yes, yes?

Rebecca. For you never really found yourself as long as Beata was
Alive--

Rosmer. Alas, you are right in that.

Rebecca. When it came about that I was living together with you here,
in peace and solitude--when you exchanged all your thoughts with me
unreservedly--your every mood, however tender or intimate--then the
great change happened in me. Little by little, you understand. Almost
imperceptibly--but overwhelmingly in the end, till it reached the
uttermost depths of my soul.

Rosmer. What does this mean, Rebecca?

Rebecca. All the other feeling--all that horrible passion that had
drowned my better self--left me entirely. All the violent emotions that
had been roused in me were quelled and silenced. A peace stole over my
soul--a quiet like that of one of our mountain peaks up under the
midnight sun.

Rosmer. Tell me more of it--all that you can.

Rebecca. There is not much more to tell. Only that this was how love
grew up in my heart--a great, self-denying love--content with such a
union of hearts as there has been between us two.

Rosmer. Oh, if only I had had the slightest suspicion of all this!

Rebecca. It is best as it is. Yesterday, when you asked me if I would
be your wife, I gave a cry of joy--

Rosmer. Yes, it was that, Rebecca, was it not! I thought that was what
it meant.

Rebecca. For a moment, yes-I forgot myself for a moment. It was my
dauntless will of the old days that was struggling to be free again.
But now it has no more strength--it has lost it for ever.

Rosmer. How do you explain what has taken place in you?

Rebecca. It is the Rosmer attitude towards life-or your attitude
towards life, at any rate--that has infected my will.

Rosmer. Infected?

Rebecca. Yes, and made it sickly--bound it captive under laws that
formerly had no meaning for me. You--my life together with you--have
ennobled my soul--

Rosmer. Ah, if I dared believe that to be true!

Rebecca. You may believe it confidently. The Rosmer attitude towards
life ennobles. But-(shakes her head)-but-but--

Rosmer. But? Well?

Rebecca. But it kills joy, you know.

Rosmer. Do you say that, Rebecca?

Rebecca.