The crutch is-- ---" ALLMERS. [Coming forward.] You shall not stand there listening to a sound that does not exist. I tell You, Asta and Borgheim are on board. They have started already. Asta is gone. RITA. [Looks timidly at him.] Then I suppose you will soon be gone, too, Alfred? ALLMERS. [Quickly.] What do you mean by that? RITA. That you will follow your sister. ALLMERS. Has Asta told you anything? RITA. No. But you said yourself it was for Asta's sake that--that we came together. ALLMERS. Yes, but you, you yourself, have bound me to you--by our life together. RITA. Oh, in your eyes I am not--I am not--entrancingly beautiful any more. ALLMERS. The law of change may perhaps keep us together, none the less. RITA. [Nodding slowly.] There is a change in me now--I feel the anguish of it. ALLMERS. Anguish? RITA. Yes, for change, too, is a sort of birth. ALLMERS. It is--or a resurrection. Transition to a higher life. RITA. [Gazing sadly before her.] Yes--with the loss of all, all life's happiness. ALLMERS. That loss is just the gain. RITA. [Vehemently.] Oh, phrases! Good God, we are creatures of earth after all. ALLMERS. But something akin to the sea and the heavens too, Rita. RITA. You perhaps. Not I. ALLMERS. Oh, yes--you too, more than you yourself suspect. RITA. [Advancing a pace towards him.] Tell me, Alfred--could you