MRS. ALVING. If I weren't such a pitiful coward, I should say to
him, "Marry her, or make what arrangement you please, only let us
have nothing underhand about it."

MANDERS. Merciful heavens, would you let them marry! Anything so
dreadful--! so unheard of--

MRS. ALVING. Do you really mean "unheard of"? Frankly, Pastor
Manders, do you suppose that throughout the country there are not
plenty of married couples as closely akin as they?

MANDERS. I don't in the least understand you.

MRS. ALVING. Oh yes, indeed you do.

MANDERS. Ah, you are thinking of the possibility that--Alas! yes,
family life is certainly not always so pure as it ought to be. But
in such a case as you point to, one can never know--at least with
any certainty. Here, on the other hand--that you, a mother, can
think of letting your son--

MRS. ALVING. But I cannot--I wouldn't for anything in the world;
that is precisely what I am saying.

MANDERS. No, because you are a "coward," as you put it. But if you
were not a "coward," then--? Good God! a connection so shocking!

MRS. ALVING. So far as that goes, they say we are all sprung from
connections of that sort. And who is it that arranged the world so,