up before me to remind me of the dead.

Rebecca. Like the White Horse of Rosmersholm.

Rosmer. Yes, like that. Rushing at me out of the dark--out of the
silence.

Rebecca. And, because of this morbid fancy of yours, you are going to
give up the hold you had just gained upon real life?

Rosmer. You are right, it seems hard--hard, Rebecca. But I have no
power of choice in the matter. How do you think I could ever get the
mastery over it?

Rebecca (standing behind his chair). By making new ties for yourself.

Rosmer (starts, and looks up). New ties?

Rebecca. Yes, new ties with the outside world. Live, work, do
something! Do not sit here musing and brooding over insoluble
conundrums.

Rosmer (getting up). New ties! (Walks across the room, turns at the
door and comes back again.) A question occurs to my mind. Has it not
occurred to you too, Rebecca?

Rebecca (catching her breath). Let me hear what it is.

Rosmer. What do you suppose will become of the tie between us, after
to-day?

Rebecca. I think surely our friendship can endure, come what may.

Rosmer. Yes, but that is not exactly what I meant. I was thinking of
what brought us together from the first, what links us so closely to
one another--our common belief in the possibility of a man and a woman
living together in chastity.

Rebecca. Yes, yes--what of it?

Rosmer. What I mean is--does not such a tie as that--such a tie as
ours--seem to belong properly to a life lived in quiet, happy
peacefulness?

Rebecca. Well?

Rosmer. But now I see stretching before me a life of strife and unrest
and violent emotions. For I mean to live my life, Rebecca! I am not
going to let myself be beaten to the ground by the dread of what may
happen. I am not going to have my course of life prescribed for me,
either by any living soul or by another.

Rebecca. No, no--do not! Be a free man in everything, John!

Rosmer. Do you understand what is in my Mind, then? Do you not know? Do
you not see how I could best win my freedom from all these harrowing
memories from the whole sad past?

Rebecca. Tell me!

Rosmer. By setting up, in opposition to them, a new and living reality.

Rebecca (feeling for the back of the chair). A living--? What do you
mean?

Rosmer (coming closer to her). Rebecca--suppose I asked you now--will
you be my second wife?

Rebecca (is speechless for a moment, then gives a cry of joy). Your
wife! Yours--! I!

Rosmer. Yes--let us try what that