(Aloud) This is a clever
stratagem, but I never wrote a single line. What you say is not true.
It is impossible. Where are the letters?
Pauline
They are in my possession.
Gertrude
In your room?
Pauline
They are where you can never reach them.
Gertrude (aside)
Madness with its wildest dreams spins through my brain! My fingers
itch for murder. It is in such moments as this that men kill each
other! How gladly would I kill her! My God! Do not forsake me! Leave
me my reason! (Aloud) Wait a moment.
Pauline (aside)
My thanks to you, Ferdinand! I see how much you love me; I have been
able to pay back to her all the wrongs she did us a short time
ago--and--she shall save us from all we feared!
Gertrude (aside)
She must have them about her,--but how can I be sure of that? Ah!
(Aloud) Pauline! If you have had those letters for long, you must have
known that I was in love with Ferdinand. You can only lately have
received them.
Pauline
They came into my hands this morning.
Gertrude
You have not read them all?
Pauline
Enough to find out that they would ruin you.
Gertrude
Pauline, life is just beginning for you. (A knock is heard.) Ferdinand
is the first man, young, well educated and distinguished, for he is
distinguished, by whom you have been attracted; but there are many
others in the world such as he is. Ferdinand has been in a certain
sense under the same roof with you, and you have seen him every day;
the first impulses of your heart have therefore directed you to him.
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