least, remains clear: your marriage was in full accordance with law
and order.

MRS. ALVING. [At the window.] Oh, that perpetual law and order! I
often think that is what does all the mischief in this world of
ours.

MANDERS. Mrs. Alving, that is a sinful way of talking.

MRS. ALVING. Well, I can't help it; I must have done with all this
constraint and insincerity. I can endure it no longer. I must work
my way out to freedom.

MANDERS. What do you mean by that?

MRS. ALVING. [Drumming on the window frame.] I ought never to have
concealed the facts of Alving's life. But at that time I dared not
do anything else-I was afraid, partly on my own account. I was such
a coward.

MANDERS. A coward?

MRS. ALVING. If people had come to know anything, they would have
said--"Poor man! with a runaway wife, no wonder he kicks over the
traces."

MANDERS. Such remarks might have been made with a certain show of
right.

MRS. ALVING. [Looking steadily at him.] If I were what I ought to