Ellida (starting). What is this! How do you address me? Whom are you looking for?
The Stranger. Well, I suppose I'm looking for you.
Ellida (shuddering). Oh! (She stares at him, totters back, uttering a half-suffocating cry.) The eyes!--the eyes!
The Stranger. Are you beginning to recognise me at last? I knew you at once, Ellida.
Ellida. The eyes! Don't look at me like that! I shall cry for help!
The Stranger. Hush, hush! Do not fear. I shan't hurt you.
Ellida (covering her eyes with her hands). Do not look at me like that, I say!
The Stranger (leaning with his arms on the garden fence). I came with the English steamer.
Ellida (stealing a frightened look at him). What do you want with me?
The Stranger. I promised you to come as soon as I could--Ellida. Go--go away! Never, never come here again! I wrote to you that everything must be over between us--everything! Oh! you know that!
The Stranger (imperturbably, and not answering her). I would gladly have come to you sooner; but I could not. Now, at last Iam able to, and I am here, Ellida.
Ellida. What is it you want with me? What do you mean? Why have you come here?
The Stranger. Surely you know I've come to fetch you.
Ellida (recoils in terror). To fetch me! Is that what you mean?
The Stranger. Of course.
Ellida. But surely you know that I am married?
The Stranger. Yes, I know.
Ellida. And yet--and yet you have come to--to fetch me!
The Stranger. Certainly I have.
Ellida (seizing her head with both her hands). Oh! this misery--this horror! This horror!
The Stranger. Perhaps you don't want to come?
Ellida (bewildered). Don't look at me like that.
The Stranger. I was asking you if you didn't want to come.
Ellida. No, no, no! Never in all eternity! I will not, I tell you. I neither can nor will. (In lower tone.) I dare not.
The Stranger (climbs over the fence, and comes into the garden).
Well, Ellida, let me tell you one thing before I go.
Ellida (wishes to fly, but cannot. She stands as one paralysed with terror, and leans for support against the trunk of a tree by the pond). Don't touch me! Don't come near me! No nearer! Don't touch me, I say!
The Stranger (cautiously coming a few steps nearer). You need not be so afraid of me, Ellida.
Ellida (covering her eyes with her hands). Don't look at me like that.
The Stranger. Do not be afraid--not afraid.
(WANGEL comes through the garden, from the left.)Wangel (still half-way between the trees). Well, you've had to wait for me a long while.
Ellida (rushes towards him, clings fast to his arm, and cries out). Oh! Wangel! Save me! You save me--if you can!
Wangel. Ellida! What in heaven's name!
Ellida. Save me, Wangel! Don't you see him there? Why, he is standing there!
Wangel (looking thither). That man? (Coming nearer.) May I ask you who you are, and what you have come into this garden for?
The Stranger (motions with a nod towards ELLIDA). I want to talk to her.
Wangel. Oh! indeed. So I suppose it was you. (To ELLIDA.) I hear a stranger has been to the house and asked for you?
The Stranger. Yes, it was I.
Wangel. And what do you want with my wife? (Turning round.) Do you know him, Ellida?
Ellida (in a low voice and wringing her hands). Do I know him!
Yes, yes, yes!
Wangel (quickly). Well!
Ellida. Why, it is he, Wangel!--he himself! He who you know!
Wangel. What! What is it you say? (Turning.) Are you the Johnston who once...
The Stranger. You may call me Johnston for aught I care! However, that's not my name, Wangel. It is not?
The Stranger. It is--no longer. No!
Wangel. And what may you want with my wife? For I suppose you know the lighthouse-keeper's daughter has been married this long time, and whom she married, you of course also know.
The Stranger. I've known it over three years.
Ellida (eagerly). How did you come to know it?
The Stranger. I was on my way home to you, Ellida. I came across an old newspaper. It was a paper from these parts, and in it there was that about the marriage.
Ellida (looking straight in front of her). The marriage! So it was that!
The Stranger. It seemed so wonderful to me. For the rings--why that, too, was a marriage, Ellida.
Ellida (covering her face with her hands). Oh!--Wangel. How dare you?
The Stranger. Have you forgotten that?
Ellida (feeling his look, suddenly cries out). Don't stand there and look at me like that!
Wangel (goes up to him). You must deal with me, and not with her.
In short--now that you know the circumstances--what is it you really want here? Why do you seek my wife?
The Stranger. I promised Ellida to come to her as soon as Icould.
Wangel. Ellida, again!--
The Stranger. And Ellida promised faithfully she would wait for me until I came.
Wangel. I notice you call my wife by her first name. This kind of familiarity is not customary with us here.
The Stranger. I know that perfectly. But as she first, and above all, belongs to me--Wangel. To you, still--
Ellida (draws back behind WANGEL). Oh! he will never release me!
Wangel. To you? You say she belongs to you?
The Stranger. Has she told you anything about the two rings--my ring and Ellida's?
Wangel. Certainly. And what then? She put an end to that long ago. You have had her letters, so you know this yourself.
The Stranger. Both Ellida and I agreed that what we did should have all the strength and authority of a real and full marriage.
Ellida. But you hear, I will not! Never on earth do I wish to know anything more of you. Do not look at me like that. I will not, I tell you!
Wangel. You must be mad to think you can come here, and base any claim upon such childish nonsense.
The Stranger. That's true. A claim, in your sense, I certainly have not.
