(Looks up at his house.) My poor wife, sitting up there dreadfully alarmed on my account! (Goes out to the right. As soon as he has gone, the house-door opens and JOHN comes warily out.) JOHN. So he has gone out, has he! Oh, well, he is bound to come in again! I will wait and catch him, that I will! Tra, la, la, la, la! I can play about here in the fog till he comes back; I have nothing to lose! And it will be best to catch him in the street; he will make less fuss, and can't run away from me! Tra, la, la, la, la! (Lounges out to the right. A moment later, HARALD comes out of the park. He is dressed much as EVJE is, but has not his coat-collar turned up.) Harald. There is a light in her window! Then she is alone in her room. What am I going to do now? Twice already I have come to look at that light; now I have seen it--and must go away! Good-bye, my darling! Be patient, and wait! I know your thoughts are with me now; and I know you feel that mine are with you! (As he turns away from the house he sees the veiled figure of GERTRUD, who, as soon as she has come nearer, rushes to him, throws up her veil, and falls into his arms in a glad embrace.) Gertrud. I was certain that, if you could not go into the house again, you would be out here! I knew you would not go away from me, dear! Harald. No--neither now nor ever. Gertrud. And, while I was walking up and down here in the fog, I felt that though there might be all this gloom tend cold around us outside, there was the brightness and warmth of certainty in our hearts. Harald. Yes, our love is the one certainty for me! Fog may obscure the goal I aim at, the road I have to I read, the very ground I stand on; doubts may even for a while attack my faith; but my love for you shines clear through it all! Gertrud. Thank you, my darling! If that is so, there is nothing that we cannot overcome! Harald. Of course, you know what took place to-day? Gertrud. I can guess. Harald. Is it true that you are ill? Why did you never tell me? Gertrud. No, the doctor is not telling the truth; I am not ill! Even if I were, what matter? I should go on living as long as I could--and should have done my duty before I gave in! Harald. That is the way to look at it! Gertrud. But I am not ill! I suffer, it is true--and am likely to--every time you are persecuted, or my parents on my account. Because _I_ have drawn them into all this that, they are so unfitted for, and that is why it pains me so to see how unprepared it finds them--most of all when, out of tenderness for me, they try to conceal it. But I can't alter things. We are fighting for a cause that you believe to be right, and so do I; surely that is better than never to suffer at all in any good cause. Try me! Let me share the fight with you! I am not weak; it is only that my heart is sore for those I love. Harald. You splendid, loyal creature!--and you are mine! (Embraces her.) Gertrud. You should hear what grandfather says!