[_Comes in again through the door on the left; looks round her, and says with suppressed emotion:_] Are you alone, Biörn? BIÖRN. Is it you, Mistress Elina? ELINA. Come, Biörn, tell me one of your stories; I know you can tell others than those that-—- BIÖRN. A story? Now—so late in the evening——? ELINA. If you count from the time when it grew dark at Östråt, then ’tis late indeed. BIÖRN. What ails you? Has aught crossed you? You seem so restless. ELINA. May be so. BIÖRN. There is something amiss. I have hardly known you this half year past. ELINA. Bethink you: this half year past my dearest sister Lucia has been sleeping in the vault below. BIÖRN. That is not all, Mistress Elina—it is not that alone that makes you now thoughtful and white and silent, now restless and ill at ease, as you are to-night. ELINA. Not that alone, you think? And wherefore not? Was she not gentle and pure and fair as a summer night? Biörn,—I tell you, Lucia was dear to me as my life. Have you forgotten how many a time, when we were children, we sat on your knee in the winter evenings? You sang songs to us, and told us tales—— BIÖRN. Ay, then you were blithe and gay. ELINA. Ah, then, Biörn! Then I lived a glorious life in fable-land, and in my own imaginings. Can it be that the sea-strand was naked then as now? If it was so, I knew it not. ’Twas there I loved to go weaving all my fair romances; my heroes came from afar and sailed again across the sea; I lived in their midst, and set forth with them when they sailed away. [_Sinks on a chair._] Now I feel so faint and weary; I can live no longer in my tales. They are only—tales. [_Rising, vehemently._] Biörn, know you what has made me sick? A truth; a hateful, hateful truth, that gnaws me day and night. BIÖRN. What mean you? ELINA. Do you remember how sometimes you would give us good counsel and wise saws? Sister Lucia followed them; but I—ah, well-a-day! BIÖRN. [_Consoling her._] Well, well—-! ELINA.