THE CHAMBERLAIN. There, you see! SELMA. What is ruined? ERIK. Everything. SELMA. Do you mean you have lost your money? ERIK. Money, house, inheritance—everything! SELMA. Is that what you call everything? ERIK. Come, let us go, Selma. You are all I have left me. We must bear the blow together. SELMA. The blow? Bear it together? [_With a cry._] Do you think I am fit for that, now? THE CHAMBERLAIN. For heaven’s sake——! ERIK. What do you mean? THORA. Oh, Selma, take care! SELMA. No, I won’t take care! I cannot go on lying and shamming any longer! I must speak the truth. I will not “bear” anything! ERIK. Selma! THE CHAMBERLAIN. Child, what are you saying? SELMA. Oh, how cruel you have been to me! Shamefully—all of you! It was my part always to accept—never to give. I have been like a pauper among you. You never came and demanded a sacrifice of me; I was not fit to bear anything. I hate you! I loathe you! ERIK. What can this mean? THE CHAMBERLAIN. She is ill; she is out of her mind! SELMA. How I have thirsted for a single drop of your troubles, your anxieties! But when I begged for it you only laughed me off. You have dressed me up like a doll; you have played with me as you would play with a child. Oh, what a joy it would have been to me to take my share in your burdens! How I longed, how I yearned, for a large, and high, and strenuous part in life! Now you come to me, Erik, now that you have nothing else left. But I will not be treated simply as a last resource. I will have nothing to do with your troubles now. I won’t stay with you! I will rather play and sing in the streets——! Let me be! Let me be! [_She rushes out by the back._ THE CHAMBERLAIN. Thora, was there any meaning in all that, or—— THORA. Oh, yes, there was meaning in it; if only I had seen it sooner. [_Goes out by the back._ ERIK. No! All else I can lose, but not her! Selma, Selma! [_Follows_ THORA _and_ SELMA. RINGDAL. [_Enters from the right._] Chamberlain! THE CHAMBERLAIN. Well, what is it? RINGDAL. I have been to the Bank——