Not more than her happiness. Think you that, with Merete’s lot before my eyes, I could sacrifice my second child to a man that loved her not? ELINA. Cunning words may beguile many, but they beguile not me—— Think not I know nothing of all that is passing in our land. I understand your counsels but too well. I know that in you the Danish lords have no true friend. It may be that you hate them; but you fear them too. When you gave Merete to Vinzents Lunge, the Danes held the mastery on all sides throughout our land. Three years later, when you forbade Lucia to wed the man to whom, though he had deceived her, she had given her life—things were far different then. The King’s Danish governors had shamefully misused the common people, and you deemed it not wise to link yourself still more closely to the foreign tyrants. And what have you done to avenge her that was sent so young to her grave? You have done nothing. Well then, I will act in your stead; I will avenge all the shame they have brought upon our people and our house! LADY INGER. You? What will you do? ELINA. I will go my way, even as you go yours. What I shall do I myself know not; but I feel within me the strength to dare all for our righteous cause. LADY INGER. Then have you a hard fight before you. I once promised as you do now—and my hair has grown grey under the burden of that promise. ELINA. Good-night! Your guest will soon be here, and at that meeting I should be one too many. It may be there is yet time for you——; well, God strengthen and guide you on your path! Forget not that the eyes of many thousands are fixed on you. Think on Merete, weeping late and early over her wasted life. Think on Lucia, sleeping in her black coffin. And one thing more. Forget not that in the game you play this night, your stake is your last child. [_Goes out to the left_. LADY INGER. [_Looks after her awhile._] My last child? You know not how true was that word——But the stake is not my child only. God help me, I am playing to-night for the whole of Norway’s land. Ah—is not that some one riding through the gateway? [_Listens at the window._ No; not yet. Only the wind; it blows cold as the grave—— Has God a right to do this?—To make me a woman—and then to lay on my shoulders a man’s work?