MAGDA. [_After a silence_.] Oh, I am so tired! HEFFTERDINGT. Miss Magda! MAGDA. [_Brooding_,] I think I shall see those glaring bloodshot eyes before me always--wherever I go. HEFFTERDINGT. Miss Magda! MAGDA. How you must despise me! HEFFTERDINGT. Ah, Miss Magda, I have long been a stranger to despite. We are all poor sinners-- MAGDA. [_With a bitter laugh_.] Truly we are-- Oh, I am so tired!--it is crushing me. There is that old man going out to let himself be shot dead for my sake, as if he could atone for all my sins with his single life! Oh, I am so tired! HEFFTERDINGT. Miss Magda--I can only conjecture--what all this means--but you have given me the right to speak to you as a friend. And I feel that I am even more. I am your fellow-sinner, Miss Magda! MAGDA. Good Heavens! Still harping on that! HEFFTERDINGT. Do you feel the obligation, Miss Magda, to bring honor and peace back to this house? MAGDA. [_Breaking out in anguish_.] You have lived through the sorrow, and ask whether I feel it? HEFFTERDINGT. I think your father will obtain from that gentleman the declaration that he is ready for any sort of peaceable satisfaction. MAGDA. Ha, ha! The noble soul! But what can I do? HEFFTERDINGT. You can--not spurn the hand which he will offer you. MAGDA. What? You don't mean-- This man--this strange man whom I despise--how, how could I-- HEFFTERDINGT. Dear Miss Magda, there comes an hour to almost every man when he collects the broken pieces of his life, to form them together into a new design. I have found it so with myself. And now it is your turn. MAGDA. I will not do it--I will not do it. HEFFTERDINGT. You will have to. MAGDA. I would rather take my child in my arms and throw myself into the sea. HEFFTERDINGT. [_Suppresses a violent start; continues after a silence, hoarsely_.] Of course, that is the simplest solution. And your father can follow you. MAGDA. Oh, have pity on me! I must do whatever you demand. I don't know how you have gained such power over me. Oh, man, if the slightest memory of what you once felt, if the least pity for your own youth, still lives within you, you cannot sacrifice me so! HEFFTERDINGT. I do not sacrifice you alone, Miss Magda. MAGDA.