Think not I reproach you. Rather I honour you for it, as never before have I honoured woman. But for this I reproach my fate—and the thought is a gnawing pain to me—that you and I were not sooner brought face to face.——Elina Gyldenlöve! Your mother has told me of you. While far from Östråt life ran its restless course, you went your lonely way in silence, living in your dreams and histories. Therefore you will understand what I have to tell you.—Know, then, that once I too lived even such a life as yours. Methought that when I stepped forth into the great world, a noble and stately woman would come to meet me, and would beckon to me and point out the path towards a glorious goal.—I was deceived, Elina Gyldenlöve! Women came to meet me; but _she_ was not among them. Ere yet I had come to full manhood, I had learnt to despise them all. Was it my fault? Why were not the others even as you?—I know the fate of your fatherland lies heavy on your soul; and you know the part I have in these affairs——. ’Tis said of me that I am false as the sea-foam. Mayhap I am; but if I be, it is women who have made me so. Had I sooner found what I sought,—had I met a woman proud and noble and high-souled even as you, then had my path been different indeed. At this moment, maybe, I had been standing at your side as the champion of all that suffer wrong in Norway’s land. For _this_ I believe: a woman is the mightiest power in the world, and in her hand it lies to guide a man whither God Almighty would have him go. ELINA. [_To herself._] Can it be as he says? Nay, nay; there is falsehood in his eyes and deceit on his lips. And yet—no song is sweeter than his words. NILS LYKKE.