Just on that account. Yes, you may thank God that I possessed the necessary firmness; that I succeeded in dissuading you from your wild designs; and that it was vouchsafed me to lead you back to the path of duty, and home to your lawful husband. MRS. ALVING. Yes, Pastor Manders, _that_ was certainly your work. MANDERS. I was but a poor instrument in a Higher Hand. And what a blessing has it not proved to you, all the days of your life, that I induced you to resume the yoke of duty and obedience! Did not everything happen as I foretold? Did not Alving turn his back on his errors, as a man should? Did he not live with you from that time, lovingly and blamelessly, all his days? Did he not become a benefactor to the whole district? And did he not help you to rise to his own level, so that you, little by little, became his assistant in all his undertakings? And a capital assistant, too—oh, I know, Mrs. Alving, _that_ praise is due to you.—But now I come to the next great error in your life. MRS. ALVING. What do you mean? MANDERS. Just as you once disowned a wife’s duty, so you have since disowned a mother’s. MRS. ALVING. Ah——! MANDERS. You have been all your life under the dominion of a pestilent spirit of self-will. The whole bias of your mind has been towards insubordination and lawlessness. You have never known how to endure any bond. Everything that has weighed upon you in life you have cast away without care or conscience, like a burden you were free to throw off at will. It did not please you to be a wife any longer, and you left your husband. You found it troublesome to be a mother, and you sent your child forth among strangers. MRS. ALVING. Yes, that is true. I did so. MANDERS. And thus you have become a stranger to him. MRS. ALVING. No! no! I am not. MANDERS. Yes, you are; you _must_ be. And in what state of mind has he returned to you? Bethink yourself well, Mrs. Alving. You sinned greatly against your husband;—that you recognise by raising yonder memorial to him. Recognise now, also, how you have sinned against your son—there may yet be time to lead him back from the paths of error. Turn back yourself, and save what may yet be saved in him. For [_With uplifted forefinger_] verily, Mrs. Alving, you are a guilt-laden mother!—This I have thought it my duty to say to you. [_Silence._ MRS. ALVING. [_Slowly and with self-control._] You have now spoken out, Pastor Manders; and to-morrow you are to speak publicly in memory of my husband. I shall not speak to-morrow. But now I will speak frankly to you, as you have spoken to me.