[_She goes with all the Guests through the back room, out to the right._ GREGERS _remains standing by the fire._ WERLE _is looking for something on the writing-table, and, appears to wish that_ GREGERS _would go; as_ GREGERS _does not move,_ WERLE _goes towards the door._ GREGERS. Father, won’t you stay a moment? WERLE. [_Stops._] What is it? GREGERS. I must have a word with you. WERLE. Can it not wait till we are alone? GREGERS. No, it cannot; for perhaps we shall never be alone together. WERLE. [_Drawing nearer._] What do you mean by that? [_During what follows, the pianoforte is faintly heard from the distant music-room._ GREGERS. How has that family been allowed to go so miserably to the wall? WERLE. You mean the Ekdals, I suppose. GREGERS. Yes, I mean the Ekdals. Lieutenant Ekdal was once so closely associated with you. WERLE. Much too closely; I have felt that to my cost for many a year. It is thanks to him that I—yes _I_—have had a kind of slur cast upon my reputation. GREGERS. [_Softly._] Are you sure that he alone was to blame? WERLE. Who else do you suppose——? GREGERS. You and he acted together in that affair of the forests—— WERLE. But was it not Ekdal that drew the map of the tracts we had bought—that fraudulent map! It was he who felled all that timber illegally on Government ground. In fact, the whole management was in his hands. I was quite in the dark as to what Lieutenant Ekdal was doing. GREGERS. Lieutenant Ekdal himself seems to have been very much in the dark as to what he was doing. WERLE. That may be. But the fact remains that he was found guilty and I acquitted. GREGERS. Yes, I know that nothing was proved against you. WERLE. Acquittal is acquittal. Why do you rake up these old miseries that turned my hair grey before its time? Is that the sort of thing you have been brooding over up there, all these years? I can assure you, Gregers, here in the town the whole story has been forgotten long ago—so far as _I_ am concerned. GREGERS. But that unhappy Ekdal family. WERLE.