CAPTAIN. No, I am not. Here is a buried crime that begins to
stench, and what a hellish crime! You women have been compassionate
enough to free the black slaves, but you have kept the white ones.
I have worked and slaved for you, your child, your mother, your
servants; I have sacrificed promotion and career; I have endured
torture, flaggellation, sleeplessness, worry for your sake, until
my hair has grown gray; and all that you might enjoy a life without
care, and when you grew old, enjoy life over again in your child. I
have borne everything without complaint, because I thought myself
the father of your child. This is the commonest kind of theft, the
most brutal slavery. I have had seventeen years of penal servitude
and have been innocent. What can you give me in return for that?

LAURA. Now you are quite mad.

CAPTAIN. That is your hope!--And I see how you have labored to
conceal your crime. I sympathized with you because I did not
understand your grief. I have often lulled your evil conscience to
rest when I thought I was driving away morbid thoughts. I have
heard you cry out in your sleep and not wanted to listen. I
remember now night before last--Bertha's birthday--it was between
two and three in the morning, and I was sitting up reading; you
shrieked, "Don't, don't!" as if someone were strangling you; I
knocked on the wall--I didn't want to hear any more. I have had my
suspicions for a long time but I did not dare to hear them
confirmed. All this I have suffered for you. What will you do for
me?

LAURA. What can I do? I will swear by God and all I hold sacred
that you are Bertha's father.